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The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Leslie Iwerks | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Billy Corgan

Music, Arts, Performing Arts

4.6 • 731 Ratings

🗓️ 18 March 2026

⏱️ 63 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Billy Corgan sits down with Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Leslie Iwerks, granddaughter of Disney animation pioneer Ub Iwerks, for a fascinating conversation about family legacy, creative ambition, and the stories history almost forgot. Leslie traces her journey from USC film school to becoming one of Hollywood’s most respected documentarians, with credits including The Pixar Story, Industrial Light & Magic, and her latest film, Disneyland Handcrafted. Along the way, Billy and Leslie dig into Ub Iwerks’ indispensable role in creating Mickey Mouse, explore Walt Disney’s visionary drive, Roy Disney’s underrated role as the financial backbone of the company, and the near-impossible feat of building Disneyland in less than a year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

I love to travel, I love to meet people, I love to interview people, I love to, you know,

0:04.0

what other career really allows you to travel the world and meet all sorts of people you'd never get to meet.

0:10.0

Your grandfather was Ubb IWorks, who started basically Disney Animation.

0:14.0

Up always said, you know, anyone can draw a mouse.

0:18.0

It's what you do with it that counts.

0:20.0

First thing that comes in mind and

0:21.6

is it seems so honorable that you wanted to tell his story i think it's such a beautiful thing

0:26.7

without up there would have never been a mickey so he literally saved disney animation umb did

0:33.1

that's insane yeah like it's truly insane it is Leslie i, thank you so much for being on my show. I'm so appreciate you being here. A quick resume, because I think it sort of sets up the thing. So you're a very accomplished documentary. Filmmaker. Is that a fair thing to say? Or filmmaker i'll always take accomplished i like that who

0:56.4

wouldn't okay uh just a quick resume on you and this isn't complete this is i'm just cherry picking

1:02.3

a hand behind the mouse the ob i work story um which is also involves your family recycle life the

1:09.1

pixar story dirty oil, Ella Brennan, industrial light

1:12.6

magic creating the impossible, pipe dream, citizen Hearst, the imaginary story, superpowered the DC

1:18.7

story, 100 years of Warner Brothers, and of course, the latest Disney Hancraft. That's quite a resume you got

1:23.3

going. Thanks. It's kept me out of trouble. Did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, I know you

1:30.0

went to film school, but I mean, did you want to be a documentary filmmaker? Because it seems to me

1:33.8

it's a very particular discipline. Yeah, well, not, not really. I went to film school thinking I'd be

1:40.0

doing narrative and never took a documentary class in film school at USC, but I graduated and I had this

1:51.7

burning desire to tell my grandfather's story because the people that were that worked with him

1:56.7

were passing away. And I had never known him. I was, I mean, I, he passed, he was like maybe you were like one year old when he passed away. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I thought, well, this will be an opportunity for me to get to know him through other people. Sure. And so I ventured to make my own documentary about him. So that was, that was, so real quick, your grandfather was of Iworks.

2:19.7

Correct.

2:19.9

We started basically Disney animation with Walt, going all the way back to Kansas City and all

...

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