Jac Schaeffer on Crafting ‘The Ballad of the Witches’ Road’ and the Spell It Cast on Fans

Jac Schaeffer on crafting ‘The Ballad of the Witches’ Road’ and the spell it cast on fans, plus working with Kathryn Hahn.

Transcript

00:00I mean, yes, and also my family's, and my, yes, the idea was that we wanted to cast a

00:09spell on our audience, like that was the big idea of the show, and it was sort of several

00:14weeks into the process that we were like, well, like a song is a spell, and so the fact

00:20that it got stuck in people's heads and that it iterated and iterated, to me, that means

00:24we accomplished our goal, people, a spell was cast on the audience, so I feel great

00:28about it.

00:29Before we started production, it was very early on, and I had lunch with Catherine Han,

00:35and she was asking me who was going to direct, and I told her that I was, and I was very

00:40nervous, and I was like, is that okay?

00:43And she was like, ugh, in her Catherine way, she's like, what's happening, it's everything,

00:47and she just fully committed to the adventure with me, and that was a really big moment

00:54for me, like personally, emotionally, and also I feel like for my career.

00:57There were a lot of those moments.

01:00One moment that was really special was when, in episode six at the very end, when the camera

01:08pushes in on Joe, and he says, I'm Billy Maximoff.

01:13Say again.

01:19I'm Billy Maximoff.

01:22We shot that a little bit later in the schedule, and Joe is extraordinary in the show, and

01:28he really sort of came into his own during production, and that moment, I think it was

01:33like the fourth or fifth take, he says it, and it has so much gravity to it, he owns

01:42it, and afterwards I went to the steadicam operator, Nick Muller, who's really talented,

01:45and I was like, you nailed it with that move, and he said to me, he's like, no, Joe pulled

01:49me in, and I was like, he did.

01:52So that was just, I was like, ah, we've made a superhero.

01:56I mean, of course I went to see Wicked, and of course I cried through the entirety of

02:00it, and it also, like, I went with a dear friend, and we both just cried, we just cried,

02:05like we were just leaking the whole time, and it's one of those that I sort of hope

02:10Agatha is maybe in this camp, where there are times when you cry and you're not really

02:14sure, it's some intersection of women, and, you know, being marginalized, and being pushed

02:21to the side, and stepping into your own power, and like, fighting injustice, and finding

02:25sisterhood, and then sisterhood being disappointing, and like all of that sort of morass, I just,

02:30it was so, so moving to me, and I think that that is what it means to be a witch, is all

02:36of that complexity.

02:37Well, we had a line that got, we had to cut, that I can't even, it's not even going to

02:42be funny, it's just as, it's Laura Donney, one of the writers, is very talented, she

02:45wrote a terrific line.

02:47Let me think, I mean, I love Catherine, if you want straight answers, ask a straight

02:51lady, I'm like, yeah girl, do it.

02:55Hey, you want straight answers, ask a straight lady.