‘No doctor’s report required’
It’s always tricky to adapt musical theater to film (and vice versa). But in the case of the 2019 movie take on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats,” the film is just so out of place that the English composer got a dog to cope with the trauma.
In a recent interview with Variety, the man behind other musical theater classics such as “ The Phantom of the Opera,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” and “Evita” candidly discussed how the “Cats” movie has “emotionally damaged” him. Despite its stellar cast and today’s filmmaking technology, the movie adaptation failed to capture the play’s magic on-screen with its CGI errors and glitches, to name a few of its less than purr-fect traits.
“‘Cats’ was off-the-scale all wrong,” he says. “There wasn’t really any understanding of why the music ticked at all. I saw it and I just thought, ‘Oh, God, no.’ It was the first time in my 70-odd years on this planet that I went out and bought a dog. So the one good thing to come out of it is my little Havanese puppy.”
A quick scroll on the EGOT-winning artist’s Instagram page and one will see how he enjoys the company of his furry companion, named Mojito, especially during the lockdowns due to the pandemic. As Broadway makes a comeback this year, Andrew plans to take his pooch with him during his travels to New York City.
“I wrote off and said I needed him with me at all times because I’m emotionally damaged and I must have this therapy dog,” Andrew explains. “The airline wrote back and said, ‘Can you prove that you really need him?’ And I said ‘Yes, just see what Hollywood did to my musical “Cats.”’ Then the approval came back with a note saying, ‘No doctor’s report required.’”