Taymor is not sure yet whether the scripts she developed during those long lockdown days will be for film or for the stage. Theatre has much more ability to be a constant living art form.’ Photograph: Desiree Navarro/Getty Images Julie Taymor: I think film as a form is on the edge of an abyss right now. “We had to release it as scheduled, even though cinemas were closed.”Looking at the half-full glass, however, she “got a lot of writing done”. “It couldn’t wait until after the election,” she says. “It was a disaster,” Taymor says wryly, speaking of the ill-fated release of her film. With promotional duties suddenly cancelled and theatres closed, “I couldn’t rehearse anything, I couldn’t direct anything, and I’ve been here since.” When the global pandemic struck, Taymor had just premiered The Glorias, her experimental biopic of feminist Gloria Steinem at The Sundance Festival. The voices, however, cut out mid-chant, as Taymor picks the phone up at her home in Martha’s Vineyard, where she has spent the last 18 months cocooning herself from the public health crisis. Still, who could complain about being serenaded by a chorus of South African singers with a powerful message about “the circle of life moves us all, through despair and hope, through faith and love”? The song may be more than 25 years old, but there is deep resonance in it all the same. This is how they do it at Disney – even the holding music is promotionally themed.

Ingonyama nengw’ enamabala.” Waiting on the line for theatre and film director Julie Taymor to join the conference call, the score of The Lion King thrums down the line.

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