Mufasa: The Lion King with Barry Jenkins and Ben Affleck (Ep. 525)

The Director’s Cut - A DGA Podcast

Directors Guild of America

Tv & Film

4.6 • 806 Ratings

🗓️ 6 January 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Director Barry Jenkins discusses his new film, Mufasa: The Lion King, with fellow Director Ben Affleck in a Q&A at the DGA theater in Los Angeles. In the conversation, he discusses employing the VFX team from the Avatar films to create the world, working with both the Actors and Animators to realize his characters while filming in real time, and reaching out to artists and conservationists from various African countries for real references to the locations in the film. The film tells the story of Mufasa, an orphaned cub who befriends a lion destined as heir to a royal bloodline. The two become allies on a journey of adventure and self discovery as they seek to start a kingdom of their own. See photos and a summary of this event below: https://dga.org/Events/2025/February2025/Mufasa_QnA_1224

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This all comes out of the legacy of a 2D animated film where a child loses their parent.
0:06.5	And for 10 minutes, people all over the world sat in a theater and listened to that child
0:12.6	cry over the death of their father. Just an honest, pure, clear emotion that people still
0:20.0	go to Broadway every day in New York to see. It's like,
0:23.3	that's the legacy. And I thought, if I can just stay close to that and chase that, some of that,
0:29.2	some of my energy, as much of my energy as possible will remain in this thing.
0:50.3	Music this thing. Hello and welcome back to the Directors Cut, brought to you by the Directors Guild of America.
0:57.6	In this episode, the backstory to the original Lion King unfolds in director Barry Jenkins' prequel epic,
1:04.1	Mufasa, the Lion King. The film tells the story of Mufasa, an orphaned cub who befriends a lion destined as heir to a royal bloodline.
1:13.6	The two become allies on a journey of adventure and self-discovery as they seek to start a kingdom of their own.
1:21.6	In addition to Mufasa the Lion King, Jenkins' other directorial credits include the feature film, If Beale Street
1:27.6	Could Talk, and episodes of the series, Dear White People.
1:31.7	He was nominated for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature
1:35.8	Film for 2016's Moonlight, and won the DGA Award for outstanding directorial achievement
1:41.5	in movies for television and limited series for 2021's The Underground Railroad.
1:47.7	Following a screening of the film at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles, Jenkins spoke with director Ben Affleck about filming Mufasa the Lion King.
1:56.5	Listen on for their spoiler-filled conversation.
2:05.6	Thank you very much.
2:07.4	I know that wasn't for me, but I appreciate it.
2:09.2	Wait, how did you guys say?
2:10.6	It's about first aid yelling Bravo.
2:13.5	First, I just want to say thank you very much.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Directors Guild of America, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Directors Guild of America and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.