She allows you to go fully all the way with stuff, that’s kind of the fun part of it. And the styling and all that, that’s the fun part with Gaga, because you can do stuff with her that you can’t necessarily do with other artists. It’s so long ago, but I remember I wanted some bodybuilder girls in there, so we had some of those – you know, just like, rough. What was the casting process like for the actors in the opening prison sequence? It should’ve been really, like, a four- or five-day shoot, to be honest. And I knew that this was an ambitious idea because we wanted to tell a story, we wanted to have dialogue, we wanted to have choreography, all those things. You always want to push it as much as you can. I mean, every music video is like that, because the ambition level is always higher than the budget and the time you have. Was there ever a moment where you thought, “Oh my god, we’re not going to be able to pull this together”? We shot that whole part, like her speaking on the phone, all that stuff, in that motel room. It was part of the location, where we were. We were actually meant to shoot Beyonce’s performance part out in the desert, but then we lost daylight, so we improvised and put it in that little weird motel room. So it was a two-day shoot, and I remember clearly, while running out of time, when Beyonce showed up, and Beyonce and Gaga were practicing, like, literally there on the spot, figuring out the choreography while we were waiting. So we did one day around that jail, and then we did one day out in the desert.
It had everything that’s kind of like a production nightmare, with wardrobe changes and car stuff and different locations. We shot the whole thing in two days, which is pretty incredible. The “Telephone” shoot was so ambitious, so big-budget. I don’t remember what song it was – we started to write it, but then we ended up doing something else. Not really, not really – yeah, we have actually. Have you ever discussed doing a “Telephone” part 2? It’s kind of fun, and it would be cool to have a third one coming.Īnd the internet has certainly been clamoring for that. Let’s continue.” And then we ended “Telephone” with “to be continued” as well. And then that kind of became like, “Oh, wait a minute.
I kind of like the idea of putting “to be continued” at the end, just to make it more exciting. “Telephone” was a direct sequel to “Paparazzi.” When you were working on “Paparazzi,” did you have an idea of where it would go? It’s a back and forth, and that’s how we do it. Like we always do, she talked to me on the phone and I wrote everything down and added stuff to it. But yeah, I don’t remember exactly where everything came from. So my job was basically to filter and just take in all her stuff and try to make a reality out of it, you know? It was a really good collaboration, actually, a respectful collaboration, as always, with her, I have to say. I learned early on that Gaga is a very visual-driven type of artist – she’s filled with ideas. So we kind of knew each other a little bit.
We had a practice run on “Paparazzi” like, a year earlier. Tell me about how you and Gaga came up with the concept for the “Telephone” music video. Jonas Åkerlund, the Swedish filmmaker who directed and co-wrote the music video, spoke to Variety 10 years after its release about its hectic two-day shoot, improvising lines with Beyonce and Gaga and if fans ever will get a sequel after the mysterious “to be continued” note at the end of “Telephone.”
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