Elton John, along with Directors David Furnish & R.J. Cutler discuss the documentary 'Elton John: Never Too Late' at the Variety Studio at TIFF 2024. Elton also talks about his reaction to Donald Trump calling Kim Jong-Un "Rocket Man", recalls a story about 'The Lion King' & lists artists he would like to collaborate with such as Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX & Chappell Roan.
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00:00That's what music did for me for the whole time, it got me through the tough times I was suffering
00:05when I wasn't playing music. As I said in the movie, it just saved me. Music's always saved me.
00:19Thank you all three for joining us. Elton, the reception last night when everyone saw the movie
00:24was so beautiful and I know that you were emotional. What was it like seeing the movie
00:27with an audience last night at Toronto? Well I couldn't really see it because of my eye but
00:32I sensed it, I'd seen it before. I don't know, seeing it with an audience is far more emotional
00:38than just seeing it with a bunch of people and I got more out of it last night than I did when
00:43I saw it the first time and it hit harder and I really really enjoyed it. The first time I squirmed
00:50a bit because I don't like seeing myself on stage very much or on film but I enjoyed it last night.
00:56I enjoyed everything about it and I forget certain things, some of the old footage was
01:04quite remarkable because that was the lead vocal of Candle in the Wind and I just found myself
01:10looking so wistful and it wasn't a pleasant time for me as the film said at the time we were
01:15writing it. I tend to look forward so much that I don't look back and so when you look back at
01:22the footage of some of the playing and the John Lennon stuff and the studio stuff you think oh we
01:27weren't bad and I really really enjoyed it. I wasn't expecting to because I find myself difficult
01:38to watch myself but I found the audience was so warm and loving and I wasn't expecting that at
01:44the end. I had a really nice time, I wasn't expecting to. What made you emotional?
01:54Talking about my family, talking about my children, talking about how my life is now compared
01:59to what it was in 1975. I've been through a hell of a lot, I mean you name it. I've been through
02:07the highs, the lows, the highs, the lows, the highs, I mean but it's been an amazing life, it's been an
02:12amazing journey and the great thing about it is I've learned and I've recovered from my mistakes
02:16and I've had wonderful people in the latter few years to help me do that especially this man here,
02:22my husband and my children and I'm just you know the whole purpose of doing this farewell tour
02:28was to say farewell and to say I'm coming off the road and when we finished, we didn't finish in
02:34Los Angeles, we finished after Glastonbury in Britain the year afterwards and we finished in
02:38Stockholm and I got in the back of the car and I went yes, I don't have to do this again, I've done
02:44it and I wanted to go out on the high and Los Angeles Dodger Stadium was a high, Glastonbury
02:49was amazing. I was proud of the way, I told the band in the film how proud I was the way they
02:53played, they played amazingly throughout the whole tour and we ended on a high and that's what I
02:58wanted to do. I've still got enough on my plate to keep me busy for the next few years so I'm not
03:03stopping but when you take stock of what we did in the early years so quickly, how we made
03:10you know five albums in one year plus touring and everything, you think how the hell do we do it
03:16and we did it because we were on adrenaline and we were enjoying it so much.
03:21You know that we enjoyed that first part, the creative part is always enjoyable,
03:26the loneliness came when the creative part stopped so creativity kept me alive and I didn't
03:32know how to deal with my life if I wasn't creating. And so even though you're not going to
03:37tour, you will still be recording new music? Even though you're not going to tour, you'll still be
03:42recording new music? I've got yes, I've got records that are going to come out, we've got two musicals
03:48opening within a month of each other at the end of the year. Devil Wears Prada opens in London in
03:54December, Tammy Faye opens in New York on the Palace Theatre in November and that's happened
04:00because of Covid, it just you know it wasn't planned like that but that's the way it's happened.
04:06I still do my radio shows, I've got a, David and I have a beautiful photographic exhibition
04:11at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, there's plenty of things that we're doing.
04:16I like to stay active, what's happened with my eye has been very, it's been very distressing
04:24because I'm used to getting out in the morning looking at all the newspapers, looking at the
04:29charts, looking at everything, how the world is doing creatively and I've lost that for the time
04:35being, it's been seven weeks since I've been able to see out of this. But the prospect is good,
04:41I had a hell of a time with this right eye, it was a hell of a bug that got into it
04:48and sometimes I feel forlorn but most of the time I feel grateful I've still got it
04:54and I just have to be patient and I've had so much support. So I'm always optimistic
05:01but I would be, I was really, last night when I was walking around backstage, when I'm walking
05:06around at home I know where I'm going, last night backstage all the you know getting under the no
05:11lights and everything I found it really quite hard but I had to be here to support the film,
05:17I had to be here, it's the first I've been out for seven weeks and it was worth it to support
05:25RJ and David and be here for it because I'm so proud of it. RJ and David, can you talk about
05:30how the two of you got together and started collaborating to make this beautiful film?
05:35Sure, David invited me to lunch, to meet and chat, I was honoured just to be invited to the lunch
05:44and have the opportunity to speak and from that very first meeting we started talking about what
05:50kind of a movie there was to be made, a movie that would have as its spine this final tour
05:59and the final months of the tour and as its nervous system wrapped around that spine this
06:04remarkable five year period in Elton's life that where he, I have to say he's being a little modest
06:14to say he put out five albums in a year and because of adrenaline, this was an astounding
06:21year and then five year period of artistic output, 13 albums that came out over that five year period,
06:28seven of which went to number one, the Elton John catalogue from the early 1970s to the mid-1970s
06:38is as astounding an output as any artist has ever had and we know that it changed the world
06:44but what I didn't know and what David started to tell me all about during that period
06:51was what Elton was going through and we just clicked, we connected, we found a rhythm
07:00of communicating that we never really even talked much about, it just was this very natural, very
07:07organic process and then he formally invited me to be his partner and to co-direct and
07:15as I say what a thrill and what an honor and I shared with him that my very first
07:24concert was going to see Elton in 1974 and what do you know it was at Madison Square Garden and I
07:31was there as a 13 year old when John Lennon came out and performed with Elton. That was the
07:37magic message from the heavens when you meet someone you talk about collaborating and I
07:42warmed to RJ instantly and I'm a great admirer of all the wonderful films he's created but when he
07:48actually said to me you know I was at Dodger Stadium the night John Lennon went on stage I'm
07:51like oh my god, sorry, sorry, not sorry, when he said I was at Madison Square Garden the night that
08:00John Lennon went on stage I was like oh my god, that is history, you were there. That to me was
08:06like a message, that was a signal that this is the person we should be collaborating with. How did you
08:11balance your roles as a co-director and also Elton's partner? I did find it really challenging
08:17at times, I felt in the midst of while we were you know actually editing and pulling things together
08:23the gathering and filming part you know you just you just shoot and shoot and shoot but when we're
08:28actually starting to cut things together and the emotional power of what I was actually learning
08:34about Elton and things that he was revealing and that he was saying I found myself getting
08:39a lot of anxiety. I was carrying this sort of real heaviness and I do have a really good beacon for
08:47when things with Elton land authentically and when they're honest and when they're true
08:53but I don't have that objectivity when I'm so close to the subject matter to sometimes be able
08:57to step back and to have RJ's sort of very keen, very experienced eye. I leaned on that a lot, that
09:03was a tremendous amount of support. Having said that I was also able to provide a lot of meaningful
09:08insights that you know while we were building the film in terms of you know where emphasis might be
09:13in certain points that could be drawn out more and things that we needed to cover off. It really was
09:19a great exchange, we were back and forth all the time. Ideas and thoughts and things were all very
09:27enthusiastically received which was great. It wasn't combative, it wasn't...
09:33How did you find the structure of the movie where you went back and forth? That came from day
09:38really from day one because I had always thought that five-year period which was
09:43in a way skipped over in Rocketman was such a rich fodder and there was so much to
09:51talk about and David really was able, it was emotional for him and he was very close to the
09:57material. He also felt it in his heart and in a way that no one else could you know so
10:05for him to, he was able to feel themes emotionally and that's such a, what a gift you know as a
10:12filmmaker to have as your collaborator somebody who is feeding back to you on that level. It was
10:19very, a very rich process of communication. But I knew you know that the Elton coming off the
10:26road was a massively significant cultural moment in the time that we've been together. He's been
10:31doing 90 to 100 shows a year except for COVID so for him to finally come off the road and stop
10:37that's a big big moment and it was Elton's instincts when we were planning the tour who said
10:41Dodger Stadium should be my last my last North American day. That should be the place. Initially
10:45we wanted the whole tour to end there and then COVID and you know change things around but the
10:50idea then of juxtaposing Dodgers in 75 versus Dodgers in 2022 and the changes and differences
10:58in Elton's life that seemed like a really fulfilling narrative arc that we could explore
11:02and play around with. One thing that I took from watching the film last night was that before I
11:08played the Dodger Stadium show in 1975 and two days before I was having my stomach pumped
11:14um and then I went and did the show and it was fantastic and I just think well you hear so much
11:19about people's mental health these days but in those days my mental health wasn't very good but
11:24I was my I was saved by the fact that I could go on stage and play music. That saved me. I mean two
11:29two days before a show and you're having your stomach pumped and then I have to play the biggest
11:32show of my life. I did it and that's what music did for me for the whole time. It got me through
11:37the tough times I was suffering when I wasn't playing music. As I said in the movie it just
11:42saved me. Music's always saved me. Even when I was doing a lot of drugs and I was miserable and
11:47sitting on my own I still listened to music. Music that made me cry. Music that made me feel
11:53you know joyful but made me cry because I was so ashamed of myself. It saved me. I still I didn't
11:58sit there not listening to music. I always listened to music. Ellen can you talk a little bit about
12:03your place in our culture when it comes to LGBTQ rights and the movement that you've seen in the
12:09course of your life? Can you talk about your place in culture in terms of LGBTQ rights and where
12:16the movement has has gone? It's hard for me to talk about that because I don't really look at myself
12:22in that way. I mean when I came out to Cliff Jardin Rolling Stone and made that statement
12:30it wasn't a surprise to me because I'd been living an openly gay life. I mean I was living
12:34my manager. I was going to gay clubs blah blah blah. But it was nice to get the monkey off my
12:41back because I was wondering when and where it might come out. So at least I told somebody and
12:46it wasn't reported that I was without me being involved. If I helped move the LGBTQ plus community
12:55forward then I'm very proud of that because it's been a long journey for gay people and since then
13:02we've made incredible strides. I'm married to him. I have two children and that time in 1975 it
13:08was unthinkable. So we've made incredible progress and in some places we still have to make a lot
13:13more progress. And if I was part of that I'm very proud to be part of that because I'm very proud
13:19that I am a gay person. I enjoy being a gay person but it doesn't rule. Being gay doesn't rule my
13:26life. I'm just for me it's perfectly natural. I don't feel different to anybody else. I'm part of
13:33a lot of my friends. My best friends are straight people and we have a lot of gay friends as well.
13:38But it's to me I'm no different to anybody else. It's just that I sexually I am. So if I move things
13:45on I didn't do it for that. I just did it because I was asked a question and I told the truth.
13:50Plain and simple. Last night at the Q&A you talked about the election and kindness. Do you have a
13:56message for what to expect in November when it comes to the election? Well people the thing
14:02with music and what I've been gifted all my life to do. Music and sport are the two common
14:08denominators in life that bring people together no matter what religion they are. No matter what
14:13political party they vote for. I don't go on stage and say to people you mustn't vote for the
14:19Republicans and you mustn't vote for Democrats. It's none of my business how they vote. They come
14:25to see me and I'm so grateful they have. What I want by saying that last night is that there is a
14:31danger as Dick Cheney said the other day of America is in a very very volatile position at the moment.
14:40And it's a country I love and I've always loved and I'm so thankful that it made me who I am.
14:45So I just want people to vote for things that are just. Things that are important to people. The
14:52right to choose. The right to be who you are and not let anybody else tell you who to be.
14:58And that goes from all the way up to the Supreme Court and I just hope that people have
15:05make the right decision to see what is the future going to be. Is it going to be hell and brimstone
15:10or fire and brimstone and hell or are we going to have a much calmer a much safer place.
15:16It again people can vote for who they like but as far as I'm concerned I'm I love love and I
15:22love I'm a loving person and I want that to come back to America. I feel that's been lost
15:26in the last 12 years and I want to see it come back everywhere not just America.
15:32I know that you're not a supporter of Donald Trump's. He loves your music. How did it feel
15:37when he took the lyrics to Rocket Man and he used it as a nickname for Kim Jong-un and then
15:42he gave Kim Jong-un. I laughed. I thought it was brilliant. I just thought good on you Donald. I'm
15:47the Rocket Man. Yeah. I mean Donald's always been a fan of mine and he's been to my concerts many
15:52many times. So I mean I've always been friendly towards him and I thank him for his support.
16:00Yeah when he did that I just thought it was hilarious. It was made me laugh. He gave he
16:04gave Kim one of your CDs and signed it. That was that was in one of the books about him because
16:08Kim I guess didn't know the song so. What's that? He gave Kim Jong-un the signed CD. Yes. You know
16:13which. Yeah. He hasn't heard of it. I know of course he hasn't heard of Kim Jong-un. Maybe
16:17it'd be very surprising if he had. I've never toured North Korea and I have no intention of
16:21doing so. But it was I thought it was a light moment and it was fun. Yeah. Was there anything
16:29off limits and talk a little bit about going through the archives and revisiting periods
16:33of Elton's life? The thing that I was particularly sensitive about was our our sons because we do
16:40consciously do our best to keep them out of the public eye. We do occasionally put stuff up on
16:46our social media with them doing just the everyday things that other boys and girls do but we never
16:51show their faces. We try to keep you know that side of their life private. They haven't decided
16:56who they want to be yet and what they want to do with their life and I think the greatest gift you
17:01can give a child is the freedom to do that without the expectations of the world looking at them.
17:05I think it's really good to keep that separate. Look they may decide to pursue something
17:09professionally that puts them in the public eye but that needs to be their choice not ours.
17:16It was it was walking a tightrope because if you're going to tell this story properly why is
17:21Elton coming off the road? You can't not show the children. You can't not have them in the film. You
17:25have to show what he's coming off the road too. Also very challenging in that our older son
17:32in particular really doesn't like being filmed and we had so many times where we were just
17:37rocking up and shooting stuff and he would say why are you shooting me or he'd leave the room
17:42or he'd just shut down and again in that way that that serendipity always helps you when you're
17:48making a documentary. That FaceTime call in the studio when daddy's working on his on his record
17:53and they're back in England that is completely 100% them and their relationship with Elton. He
18:00had he had no idea he was being filmed and he reacted completely naturally and there's just
18:06so much in that one call because we talk in the documentary about how Elton you know what a
18:12fearful childhood he had and how that did you know go on to define a lot of his journey but when we
18:18started our own family Elton said I the one thing that's really important to me is I don't want
18:24children to know fear. He said every night I came home it was like walking on eggshells I was fearful
18:30all the time and what a horrible thing to do and and to see two boys talk to their daddy in a way
18:38where they're clearly there's no fear at all and the way that Elton talks to them and tells them
18:44that he loves them every day you know Elton grew up no one ever told no one ever told you they were
18:48loved and it was a different time in a different generation but that created in Elton what I call
18:55a desperate longing a desperate longing to be loved and a desperate longing to be free to be
19:00who you wanted to do and who you wanted to be and what you wanted to pursue and so I just love in
19:07that call you know so many parents reach that point and it's well documented in some you know
19:13family psychology studies that parents sometimes go on to repeat what they were victims of
19:18themselves in in childhood but the fact that Elton consciously at the very beginning said okay this
19:23is what it's not going to be I'm not going to put our sons through what I went through I find that
19:29call really really beautiful and very moving. Our sons have given me more love than I could
19:37have ever expected and it works both ways but it's the most along with David it's the dream that I
19:43dreamt about in 1975 when I was lonely that was the kind of life I was dreaming about and I found
19:49it and it's astonishing and I'm not going to throw it away by publicizing our sons in the wrong way
19:58they have the most beautiful life we have the most beautiful life and every day I just I'm so
20:03thankful that they are in our life it's changed me so much changed both of us so much only for the
20:08better. In terms of the the archive the archive was a journey of exploration and discovery in the
20:18in the most wonderful way Elton and David have a two warehouses full of Elton's archive and
20:27from from pianos to outfits to hundreds if not thousands of hours of videotapes
20:34tens of thousands of hours of audiotapes and we scoured it all we were given
20:38a full rein and that was it's a we were able to discover unprocessed film Elton recording
20:45Goodbye Norma Jean in the original recording session that footage hadn't been processed
20:51and we brought it to a lab we processed it and discovered it and that was amazing but so much
20:56else and then there were these two archival gold mines that we just discovered or or or got access
21:06to one of which was Elton's conversations with Alexis Petritus that he made during when he was
21:12writing his autobiography and those conversations featured Elton in the most intimate honest open
21:19way the kind of thing one could never really get in a sit-down interview with a crew in the room
21:25and lights and all of those all of those things here he was talking to one of his best friends
21:30and telling his truth about this entire period of time really his whole life so that was was an
21:37incredible thing and then of course the Cliff Jarr interviews which nobody's ever heard in in an
21:44archive in Jarr's archive at Columbia University and we pull we found those and and to be able to
21:51put the climactic scene of the film together using that those into that interview to hear
21:57Elton say leave the tape recorder running and to make that decision in that moment and again I say
22:05a little a little modesty here but that that moment changed the world that moment made what
22:12we see now possible in ways that that maybe someone else would have come along and been
22:18the first in that way but Elton chose to to seize that moment also to seize that moment when he was
22:25the biggest star in the world so to have that amount of commercial and critical success to
22:31risk his plot to risk everything to say I just can't be who I'm expected to be anymore I have
22:36to be who I truly am huge risk but that also creates opportunity you asked about how we
22:44um respond as as uh LGBT role models I'm always so grateful for the the doors that Elton's music
22:51breaks down the way that it's so interwoven with everybody's life from all backgrounds and all
22:57denominations that's an amazing door opener and people that love Elton and when all we ever try
23:03to do we don't deliberately campaign but we just try to be honest we try to be honest and try to
23:09reveal to the world at the very early days of our relationship Elton knew people whose partners
23:14rode in separate cars or sat in different sections on planes Elton said no I'm not going to do that
23:19you and I are together we'll just go out and be who we are and we'll just present who we are to
23:23the world with no airs or graces or nothing being hidden away the only conscious decision we made
23:30was when civil partnership was legalized in Britain and we said this is this is seismic
23:34this is a big moment not just for us but for the world so let's do it on the first day it's legal
23:40and you know that makes a really strong statement what surprised us as much as we hope to make a
23:46statement what a huge statement that turned out to be the world's media turned up we couldn't
23:51believe there were thousands of people on the streets of Windsor um and there were tv trucks
23:56up and down our street with their satellite dishes up filming and covering the whole event that
24:00caught us by surprise yeah we we did it the same place as uh Charles and Camilla we did and we had
24:06a bigger crowd yeah what what i'd like to say i know there's been a couple of negative niggling
24:11comments about the film not digging deep enough well some of the stuff in this film i've never
24:16seen before they dug so deep i would never expect it to hear the cliff jar thing i've never expected
24:22to see some of the footage of me singing uh uh uh
24:26candid win they they dug so deep um because i'm not the sort of person who talks about myself
24:32very much i don't do a lot of publicity i don't do much press so i was astonished at what they
24:37found so i thought we dug pretty and and your handwritten diaries those serendipitously came
24:43back into our life about i don't know 10 years ago someone had them in a briefcase in a crawl
24:48space in their house and pulled it out and said oh i guess maybe we should send these back to
24:52elton so i got the call i'm sending you something i think you'll be happy to receive it they didn't
24:56say what it was and we opened this briefcase and there were these diaries from like charting every
25:02single day of elton's career from you know pre-troubadour the early days right up until 76
25:09and the two passports where he changed his name from reg dwight to elton elton john they were all
25:14in this one briefcase when alexis started writing working with him on his memoirs he said you must
25:19have diaries from that time elton had forgotten he'd done them you know it was such a huge full
25:24busy life he said i didn't keep any diaries back then oh yes you did and they're really really
25:28revealing and really charming and and so honest and and you are like a kid in a candy store and
25:35you can feel your sheer joy of discovery of becoming and creating who you ultimately ultimately
25:42turned out to be that's really beautiful elton who would you like to collaborate with
25:48is there someone you really like to sing with that you haven't sung it with yet
25:56there's a loaded question um
26:00but brian carlisle collaborated with me on the song for the film never too late and so that was
26:07someone i really wanted to sing with i've known her for 20 years and i love her and she's one of
26:11our best friends there are plenty of young singers around at the moment i mean it's been
26:15the there's been a summer and the year of the great female uh singers and songwriters spina
26:22carmita um chapel rowan billy eilish taylor swift olivia rodrigo charlie xcx gracie abrams they've
26:30just ruled it and and they've made records that are really good songs and they brought a lot of
26:36joy to the people and the songs are really good songs so i'm happy to sing with any of those
26:40people would you want to sing with taylor swift now with taylor swift i don't have no problems
26:46with singing with taylor swift she's a great songwriter she's a great artist and she's a
26:49phenomenon i've never seen a phenomenon like that since the beatles and she works her ass off so
26:54good good luck to her i have a question about the lion king so is it true that in can you feel the
27:00love tonight it was originally supposed to be timon and pumbaa and you said no it has to be
27:05between simba and nala no it was different they it was actually you should tell the story but they
27:12they took it out of the film completely so when elton screamed lion king there was no can you feel
27:16the love tonight maybe you you should tell the story i did the lion king obviously with disney
27:20and then jeffrey katzenberg who was very involved in the film and um and was great to work with as
27:26with the whole disney team came down to atlanta and showed me a rough cut of the film nearly
27:30finished and there was no can you feel the love tonight and i said jeffrey where's can you feel
27:36the love tonight he said well we just couldn't find a place for it and i said it's a love song
27:40every disney animation film has a great love song you really ought to reconsider this um and i was
27:45quite astonished that it wasn't there not her just great surprise greatly surprised and to his credit
27:51they went back and they found a place for it and it won the oscar um and so that was working with
27:58people like that that we have done with disney on this whole thing and and the live broadcast from
28:03dodger stadium is a pleasure because they listen and we're a team and for jeffrey to go back and
28:08say disney elton says we should put this back in the film and they did and as i say won the oscar
28:13it's circle of life should have won the oscar but i'm not going to complain why circle of life
28:18because it's it's it's it's the song of the lion king it starts the lion king and and you hear the
28:24circle of life and you think of the lion king um um and yeah to me that's the song that makes the
28:30lion king but i'm not going to complain so when you saw it there was no can you feel the left
28:35hand it's that it's the peak of the movie it's the soul of the movie it wasn't no they they took it
28:40out completely yeah it wasn't it wasn't there they had no can you feel the love tonight but then when
28:45the film came out there was and but it's great isn't it great to work with people when you collaborate
28:51that they can listen to you a lot of studios would have said oh we're tough a lot of tough
28:55luck and this was such an important movie for them because it was their first ever original
29:00animation film and it's been the biggest success um as a commercial i mean i don't know i don't
29:07have the actual numbers but it's often quoted as the most successful entertainment product in
29:13history like across everything um don't know a grand total on that but that's not too bad for
29:18your first animated film it opened so many doors for me that film and i'm so grateful for that
29:25thank you all your time our time is up i could talk to you guys all day but thank you all very
29:28much really really appreciate it thank you