Pharrell’s family were clueless about this major aspect of his Lego biopic

Pharrell Williams’ biopic Piece By Piece – out in UK cinemas November 8 – is being brought to life in Lego form, but his friends and family were kept in the dark until the last moment.

The 51-year-old music artist and producer has been behind some of the greatest hits of the 00s including Gwen Stefani’s Hollaback Girl, Kelis’ Milkshake and Daft Punk’s Get Lucky.

As well as releasing songs that defined an era (for better or worse) such as his 2013 hits Happy and Blurred Lines.

All this to say, the multi-Grammy award winner from Virginia Beach has been a mammoth musical force who worked closely with some of the greatest artists of our generation. And has plenty of stories to tell from his time in the industry.

So naturally, he decided Lego was the best medium to bring his vision to the big screen.

Directed by Morgan Neville, the unconventional movie features his nearest and dearest and plenty of famous artists (such as Kendrick Lamar, Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg to name a few) recounting their adventures over the years.

Jay-Z is just one of the famous artists who appears as Lego in the movie (Picture: AP)

Not everyone knew this was going to be an unconventional biopic (Picture: AP)

But since the docudrama was originally created in a more traditional format, many of the friends and family in Pharrell’s life only discovered they would be transformed into a Lego piece alongside the rest of the world.

‘I don’t think a lot of people knew that it was Lego,’ producer Caitrin Rogers told the Metro at the LFF premiere of the movie.

‘We told everyone we were making an animated documentary, so they knew it was gonna be animated. But a lot of people didn’t know it was gonna be Lego until we finished and the trailer came out.’

As to how they reacted to seeing themselves in such an unusual format, Caitrin recalled: ‘Everybody was very excited. We had the premiere in New York and Teddy Riley was there. And watching Teddy Riley watch Rump Shaker in Lego was an amazing experience.

‘He was out of his seat. Everyone seemed to be thrilled.’

For director Morgan Neville a particular highlight from the filming process was interviewing Pharrell’s parents, Carolyn and Pharaoh.

Pharrell Williams with his wife Helen and son Rocket (Picture: WireImage)

Producer Caitrin Rogers and director Morgan Neville reflected on the wild creative process (Picture: Getty)

‘His parents are hilarious, they’re dynamic together,’ he shared fondly.

‘So I interviewed them together because I love how they talk to each other, finishing each other’s sentences and all that. They were great.’

But making a musical Lego movie that is also emotionally stirring is no easy feat when you have limited facial expressions and plastic body movement to contend with.

‘Suddenly you take a human face that’s crying, and you do it plastic. You’re like: “is this gonna work?” But it did. It really came through. So that was something that was stressful, but happily, it actually worked out,’ he added.

Although not everything was as smooth sailing.

‘It’s a musical in many ways so we wanted to have dance sequences,’ Caitrin echoed.

‘But it was incredibly challenging to get Legos to dance in a graceful manner, so we had to rethink a lot of the big musical sequences we were gonna do.’

And Pharrell was involved every step of the way, simultaneously giving the creative team ‘a lot of freedom’ but also sharing any ‘thoughts’ or ‘notes’ he had when he thought it was ‘important’.

She continued: ‘He would call and take the time to explain where he was coming from and why he thought it was an important change to make, and I feel like it that made it such a collaborative experience.’

Another aspect of the challenge was tackling the tougher, more serious, moments such as the death of Pharrell’s grandmother and the Black Lives Matter protests.

Morgan Neville’s movie highlight was discovering Pharrell’s childhood (Picture: Arthur Mola/Invision/AP)

‘We were trying very hard to stay true to his story,’ Caitirin explained.

‘We started making this film by doing a series of audio interviews with Pharrell and certain things were coming out that we felt were important to include. We wanted it to be a story that had tension and was true to his life.’

The team spent ‘a long time figuring out how to handle’ the more ‘tense moments’ in Lego ‘so that it would be taken seriously but also be understood by children, or the range of audience that would be watching this,’ she said.

And there are plenty of profound moments scattered throughout, not least the detailed re-imagining of Pharrell’s vibrant childhood.

It was this aspect of Pharrell’s life that struck Morgan the most.

He concluded: ‘He had a really interesting childhood. He grew up in The Projects in Virginia, but he didn’t see it as a handicap.

‘He actually saw it as kind of a magical place, and the people in his life who told him that he could, that he was special – his parents, his teachers, that changed his life.

‘So a big part of the movie is his childhood, and I didn’t know anything about that.’

Piece by Piece is in cinemas now.

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