Awards Daily talks to director and executive producer Alex Timbers about Baby J‘s Boston Symphony Hall venue, how his approach to comedy is similar to his approach to musicals, and what was going on with that kid in the audience.
After going into rehab, ending his marriage, and launching Mulaney 2.0 on tour, it was important for John Mulaney’s latest Netflix comedy event to be distinct, something he and director/executive producer Alex Timbers talked about ahead of producing the standup special Baby J.
“He was touring for about two years,” says Timbers, “so he’d gone on this huge evolution and he was playing these arenas, and we talked about, ‘What do you want it to feel like?’ Intimacy was very important. He wanted it to feel very different from the previous special we did together, Kid Gorgeous, which was more about scope. It was a big decision just to think about what room to play.”
They ended up settling on Boston Symphony Hall, and to create more intimacy, Timbers worked with a Steadicam up on stage. Although one thing he couldn’t account for was what would happen off-stage with a child sitting in the audience, someone Mulaney would converse and frequently refer to throughout the night.
“We did our best to show the kid. That was spontaneous, and we had no idea it was happening! In the control room, we were like, ‘Find the kid!'”
I had a fun chat with Timbers about the expectations he and Mulaney set for this special, why they waited 10 minutes before playing the opening credits, and how he shot Baby J differently than other Mulaney projects. Watch the video below!
