Originally staged in 1897, Edmond Rostand’s play Cyrano de Bergerac has retained its power to move audiences for more than a century.
In 2018, screenwriter Erica Schmidt premiered her stage musical adaptation, starring her husband Peter Dinklage in the lead role.
Four years later, and this unique take on the timeless tale has made the jump to the big screen, winning over early audiences – with praise singled out for Dinklage, who many believe is giving one of his career best performances.
Universal Pictures
The actor has previously said that his ideal role is the “romantic lead who gets the girl”, so does Cyrano count as a tragic spin on that dream gig?
“I always thought that the romantic lead gets to tell the whole story, from the beginning to the end”, he explained to Zavvi, “and having played a lot of supporting parts, coming in, chewing up the scenery bit and taking off, I thought it was nice to be able to tell the whole story for once.”
The film marks Dinklage’s debut appearance leading an on-screen musical, whilst the stage production was the first time he’d led a musical since he was a teenager, leading Gilbert & Sullivan productions in high school. His only other previous musical experience was his time fronting punk band Whizzy in the 1990s, but it’s safe to say singing love songs has a completely different vibe.
Universal
Unusually for a screen musical, director Joe Wright made the decision to have all the performers sing live on set, instead of pre recording their vocals. Dinklage believes this helped elevate his performance.
“Singing live on set was a great idea, as it really helps connect the actors if you’re doing a duet, and it just sounds better, if you’re jumping around singing, you want to hear the breathing that comes with that performance.
“In my opinion, it sounds flat if you record it before the shoot, no matter how good the recording is. I can sing, but I’m not known to be a singer, so the trick for me was to ensure I wasn’t just doing an imitation of one of my favourite singers, Matt Berninger, who is the singer for The National – which was a temptation as he wrote the lyrics.
Universal
“I had to ensure it never sounded like Matt, and always sounded like me.”
Yes, The National helped produce the music for the film, giving this a far cooler pedigree than your average screen musical. Band members Aaron and Bryce Dessner have scored several films, in addition to producing music for artists such as Taylor Swift, but the stage musical was the first big production they wrote music for, alongside Berninger who handled the lyrics.
As Dinklage explains: “They took the monologues about love from the play and transformed them into songs with original lyrics. I thought that was such a great modern way into this tale; people’s attention spans aren’t as strong as they were 120 years ago, and they don’t have the stamina for the original French version when people were happy to get out of the cold for five hours to see their friends.
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“Now we turn our phones on as soon as we get an intermission just to see what else is happening in the world! It’s a brilliant way into a classic text.”
Schmidt, who adapted her own stage musical into a screenplay for director Wright, explained how the band got involved in the first place.
“The National came on board because I stalked them”, she told Zavvi. “I kept showing up at their concerts, as I was convinced nobody else was right for this. I was obsessed with them and pursued them for about two years, trying to convince them that this was something they could do.
Universal
“They were sceptical about it, but eventually they came on board, and we spent another two years writing the songs and doing the stage play.”
This is Schmidt’s first project as a screenwriter, adapting one of the most famous works of all time. It was a daunting task, but a “tremendous” one: “The structure of Rostand’s play is great; it’s the ideal architecture to start with.
“Then the songs were fun to translate into film – they’re such interior songs, they don’t function in a traditional musical theatre way, they’re direct windows into the character’s souls. And to me, this story is timeless – it’s every bit as relevant now as it was when it was written.
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“Everybody can relate to the desire to be loved and the fear that you’re unlovable, and right now, there’s a major cultural thing of people pretending to be someone they’re not, even if it’s just editing the photos we post to look different, or the online profiles we create for ourselves. It’s hard to find love in this landscape.”
And how does she feel with someone else in the director’s chair, adapting the production she wrote and directed for the stage?
“I read somewhere that watching your film back as a screenwriter is like being a sperm donor at the christening; you have to be at peace with handing over your work to someone else. And luckily with Joe, he’s very detail-oriented, down to the minute details – he cares as much about the look of the wigs as he does the words on the page.”
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Harrison Jr., who stars as Christian, has more experience with screen musicals than other cast members; he appeared in the 2020 music comedy The High Note, and will next be seen as B.B. King in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic (which was shot prior to him joining Cyrano). But even he wasn’t ready for the challenge of performing live on set, with a month of vocal training before going in front of cameras.
“Usually when making a movie with music, it’s kind of like shooting a music video”, he explained to Zavvi, “so the big challenge here was finding a way to transition from dialogue into a musical number while making it seem natural.
“My way of doing this was to effectively speak the song as a monologue before I’d perform it, to ensure the emotional trajectory of the scene had the connective tissue it needed.”
Universal
Christian is one of the trickiest characters to get right in the story. He’s deeply endearing and eminently likeable, but he’s also an obstacle in the way of Cyrano’s romantic affection for Roxanne. The audience has to both like him and root against him to an extent; was this something Harrison Jr. was conscious of?
“As an actor, I feel it’s none of my business as to how people perceive a character. I always try to be as truthful as possible, and I saw Christian as innocent, sincere and trusting, and I thought that
was beautiful.
“If we don’t root for him at the end, if people don’t understand him, then I actually think that makes him more relatable; we’ve all felt tongue tied and have struggled to speak to the people we love. One of the first conversations I had with Joe was that I didn’t want to play Christian like he wasn’t smart.
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“I think he has a great amount of emotional intelligence, but he’s just young. I see this film being about the loss of innocence over time, once we start to perceive and feel what it’s like to be in that situation, and dealing with the complications of other people’s insecurities.”
As Harrison Jr. notes, it is an emotional watch. So whilst it may be a world-famous tale, which has
endured for over a hundred years, you will no doubt be moved once again by the tale of Cyrano.
Cyrano is out in UK cinemas from 25th February.
