Storytelling is not an easy thing to do. In fact, it’s quite complex. Imagine telling a story about a true story that you were originally a part of, which was actually all a lie created by someone else who was telling their own story, which was fake. Wrap your head around that.
Filmmaker Jono McLeod found himself in the center of that storytelling maze. With scattered puzzle pieces laid out in front of him, he slowly put them together to make the documentary “My Old School.”
The trickery of Brandon Lee was breaking news across the UK and the world. In 1993, 16-year-old Lee enrolled at Bearsden Academy, a secondary school in a well-to-do suburb of Glasgow, Scotland. Over time, he became somewhat ‘popular’ with the teachers and his fellow students. He starred in the school musical and introduced his mates to hip new bands. The only thing was… Lee already attended Bearsden Academy… in the 1970s. Eventually, his true identity was revealed and it shocked the masses.
The documentary, “My Old School” unravels the astonishing true story through the eyes of Lee’s classmates, including McLeod, who directs the film.
Alan Cumming as Brandon Lee in “My Old School”
Stepping into the shoes of Lee is the renowned and incomparable actor Alan Cumming. Originally, Cumming was meant to star and direct in a feature about Lee’s time at Bearsden Academy. When the project did not come to fruition and Lee refused to be on-camera for McLeod’s documentary, it made perfect sense for Cumming to portray Lee and lip-sync his actual interviews.
The film weaves through interviews with Lee’s classmates in present day and animated flashback scenes with cartoon characters. The animation style was brilliantly inspired by MTV’s 1990s high school icon, “Daria.” With plenty of heart and nostalgia, McLeod successfully shares the memories of students and teachers, while also displaying the talents of Alan Cumming.
I sat down with Jono McLeod and Alan Cumming to talk about this staggering tale, the making of the documentary and the enigma that is Brandon Lee.
Interview:
Pamela Price / LATF USA: I took an entertaining ride watching this documentary. Congratulations to both of you. I know it’s been a journey. It’s quite an unbelievable, true story. I experienced many different emotions. I was actually quite touched towards the end of it. Jono, as someone whose foundation is in journalism and you were a classmate of Brandon’s; How did your investigation come about? I know there was the article, but how did it unravel and were you as shocked as everyone else as you discovered all of these different facts about Brandon’s journey?
Jono McLeod: Yeah. There’s been a big gap from the story breaking back in 1995 to making this film. I think when I started off in the process of making the film, the very first person I interviewed was Brandon himself. And actually what I came to realize was that so much of our understanding of this story was informed by the fact that the only person who’s been telling it all of these years was… Brandon. You know, he’s published multiple memoirs, he’s done the rounds of the chat circuit back in the day and given newspaper interviews and stuff. And everything that we generally came to understand was sort of fed from that. But actually the process of getting my class back together again and saying, well, hang on, actually, what do you remember happening? I came to realize that “surprise, surprise:” Brandon’s version of events weren’t the most trustworthy. I’m so easily fooled. I could be fooled again today, just as I was back in ’93.
Pamela Price / LATF USA: Alan, you’re stepping into the shoes of Brandon; a man who is constantly seeking validation. How was it stepping into the shoes of Brandon. And, how was it to lip-sync. How do you approach a role like that?
Alan Cumming: It’s unlike anything I’d ever done. The only person I’d ever lip synced before was myself in, you know, in films and things you have to, sometimes when you’re singing, for instance, you have to lip sync. So it was really difficult because I’ve never played a character where I didn’t control all the elements. And in a funny way, you know, one element being so dictated. It meant you had to sort of make everything else, sort of go on top of it and meld around it. So it was kind of fascinating, but also terrifying.
Because there was no precedent or no one else to talk to. Like, “How do you lip sync a real person in a documentary?” And also I had sort of such a strong connection to — This is a huge story in Scotland. In the early nineties, when that happened and a few years after it actually happened, I was going to do a film, which is actually mentioned in “My Old School…” I was going to direct and be in a film playing Brandon. A drama 25 years ago. So. Jono asking me to do this was not only a big challenge technically, but also it was me going back to a character. I was supposed to have played. My version of the film fell apart, but I was going back to something that I was going to do a quarter of a century ago.
So it was an incredible experience for, you know, the way that things come back to you. I’m really glad because I think this film is a much better version of the one that I would’ve made. It’s more from the point of view of the people who were there, right. And it’s about how memory alters so much. And you can all undergo the same experience, but your versions of that in terms of your memory and how your memory changes towards it can differ incredibly.
Pamela Price / LATF USA: Did you ever have a chance to meet Brandon?
Alan Cumming: No, I didn’t. I mean, I think the time to do it, would’ve been 25 years ago – and I probably would’ve had it (Alan’s film) continued, but I didn’t because I was in New York and that wasn’t possible. But now this time, no, I didn’t meet him. Because you know, he didn’t want to appear in the film, so I don’t imagine he’d be that keen on meeting the person whose actually playing him.
Pamela Price / LATF USA: How was the process of filming in terms of the lip-syncing? Did you film Alan speaking and then put in the voice?
Jono McLeod: That would’ve been a challenge for Alan. (laughter)
Alan Cumming: Yeah, right?! (laughter)
Jono McLeod: The very Genesis of the film was Brandon agreeing to an interview. So his line in the sand was “I’m willing to be interviewed. I’m willing to tell my story.” He’s always been willing to tell his story in various ways, but, as of present day, , he just didn’t want to be seen on camera for whatever reason. We can all make guesses on what that may be. So I knew that would be the starting point that I would have this audio. Now, I look back now and go, “why did I not just make a blooming podcast?” That would’ve been much easier. I would’ve been done four years ago. But, I knew that there would’ve been successful lip sync performances in the past. But what I was trying to do was hang an entire film around one actor’s performance. But actually, in a film about going back in time and revisiting your past self, who better to take on the role than the man who was meant to play Brandon all those years.
Pamela Price / LATF USA: I’d love to get both of your takes on the creative process. The animation storytelling, between that and then the characters of the actual classmates themselves. Alan were you able to sit with the classmates and talk to them about their stories before they did their interviews? And Jono, talk about the animation process and creating those characters.
Alan Cumming: I didn’t meet the classmates until the party in Glasgow. The film premiered at Sundance but then it was at the Glasgow film festival and there was a party afterwards. I met them all there and it was incredible because I’ve seen them over the last few years in various cuts of the movie and then to actually meet them all and to see them all interacting with each other; it was sort of like they were back at high school again. It was the same little groups and there was this sort of bully going around, buying people drinks and apologizing. It was really incredible.
That was the first time. But I felt like I knew them by the time I actually met them, but I hadn’t met them before.
Pamela Price / LATF USA: You were stepping into somebody else’s shoes at the high school reunion.
Alan Cumming: Yeah. The whole thing’s been bizarre.
Pamela Price / LATF USA: I bet. And tell me about the animation Jono.
Jono McLeod: Yeah, it’s a really talented Scottish animation company called Wild Child. I basically came to the realization that I was making a film set in the nineties about this guy with a monotone North American accent, big curly hair and glasses who walked into my classroom in the 1990s.
He was a male version of Daria. The nineties animation icon. So absolutely, we wanted to nod to her. That was a jumping off point for us, but we took a steer from other animations from that time. And also our film dips back further in time. And, and we looked at things like the Archie Show and Scooby Doo and stuff like that. I knew that the story was quite complicated and I wanted a really simple way for the audience to follow what was going on. And, as it turned out, animation was the perfect way to do that.
Pamela Price / LATF USA: Oftentimes when there’s a documentary. sometimes that goes to Netflix or wherever, and then it becomes a movie. So, Alan, do you think that this will seek another step or do you think that this is the right storytelling note to end on?
Alan Cumming: I think this is the… I mean the older I get, I realized that I much more enjoy documentaries. When I go on a plane, I click immediately to the documentary section. I don’t know, maybe because it’s my job to do reenactments, drama reenactments of things. I’m just much more interested in real life and the people who experience something; telling their version of that story. That to me is much more interesting as a viewer. Like I said, I don’t always watch a lot of the things that I’m in – I probably would watch this – because I actually like stories that are told by the people who they happen to. Maybe this will go on. Maybe it will get caught up in 25 more years by some young filmmaker. “Hey, I’m making the life story of Brandon.” (laughter).
Pamela Price / LATF USA: You’ll come back and play him in a different form, who knows?!
Alan Cumming: You’ll be furious, Jono. (laughter)
Magnolia Pictures releases “My Old School” on Friday July 22, 2022. The film will expand theatrically July 29, 2022.
