Decades before she soared with “The Lion King” — even longer before she crashed with “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” — Julie Taymor saw her first Shakespeare play. It was 1960, and young Julie and her family, who lived near Boston, were headed to the Democratic convention in LA, where her mother was a delegate for JFK.
“We drove through Canada, stopped at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and saw ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’” she says. That was Taymor’s happy memory: The next summer she was cast as Hermia in the show at her sleep-away camp, where she was terrorized by the girl playing Puck. “She was a bully!” Taymor tells The Post. “I would have preferred to play Titania or Bottom, but at age 8, you don’t have much clout.”
These days, the 63-year-old Taymor calls the shots, whether she’s directing theater, film or opera. Her film of the live production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” she directed for the 2013 opening of Brooklyn’s Polonsky Shakespeare Center screens Saturday at 2 p.m. at BAM. Here’s what she told us about the film, the new character she created for “The Lion King” — and why she won’t talk about “Spider-Man.”
How’d you find all the kids you cast in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”?
We auditioned hundreds of kids from all over the city, then we whittled it down. I’d have LOVED to have had 100 kids onstage. But we did get a phenomenal cast of 7- to 16-year-olds who play the trees, the animals, the children. They have a pillow fight! I wanted the madness that prepubescent kids would bring.
What was the filming like?
We shot four live performances with four cameras — the cameras had the best seats in the house. The audiences got to see a movie being made, and that gave me 80 hours of material to cut from. If you’re shooting theater, people accept that they’re children in costumes, because it’s live, as opposed to having to make it look like “Avatar.”
There’s reportedly a documentary in the works about the making of “Spider-Man” …
You know what? I don’t talk about “Spider-Man.” It’s four years ago. It doesn’t exist in my mind. It’s gone. I’ll talk about “The Green Bird,” if you want, or “Magic Flute,” but not “Spider-Man.”
How about “The Lion King”?
[Laughs] I will always talk about “Lion King”! Recently I designed a new costume for [the show] in China. It’s the Year of the Monkey, and I felt, “Why not honor their great hero?” So we put Monkey [Master] into [the song] “I Can’t Wait To Be King.” It’s not a major character, but it was fun.
The other “Lion King” costumes you created made it into the Smithsonian, but they haven’t been easy on the actors wearing them. Were you ever asked to modify them?
We changed the difficult ones 17 years ago. I’ve never had anyone tell me, “We have to change the costumes, they’re difficult.” They’re not wearing dresses, they’re manipulating puppets, and the masks are much, much lighter than [in] the original. We found a new material. You know, dancers go through difficult stuff. If you don’t want to do it, you quit.
What will it take to get you back on Broadway?
Oh, I’m coming back, but it hasn’t been announced yet. But you’ll see me next spring or next winter … People are spending so much time on their computers and phones. Theater’s got something those things don’t have — it’s got scale and it’s got dimension. Virtual reality? I’d rather be there with a bunch of people and have the virtual reality [be] reality around me!