The first big thing that I did with my dad was the bicycle sequence in "The Great Muppet Caper," where Kermit and Piggy are riding bicycles in Battersea Park in London and that was a complex marionetting and cranes driving through the park, it was a complicated scene, and I did that with my dad.
Brian HensonAnd if the audience is in a kind of naughty, raunchy mood, then they're going to make naughty, raunchy suggestions and then we take them and we do the scene anyway, and that's part of the fun.
Brian HensonIt's actually good when the performers are nervous, because it kind of sharpens up your brain and a little bit of adrenaline is good. Initially it's really tough.
Brian HensonAnd again, we're kind of trying to be in that place, that's just so absurd and irreverent and hysterical and it's something that at our company we're kind of, we're so irreverent about everything, we're sort of irreverent about the establishment, we're irreverent about civilization, we're irreverent about philosophy, we're irreverent about religion.
Brian HensonSo while you're trying to improvise, you're also trying to puppeteer, you're doing everything that you need to do to perform a puppet in our style, for a camera.
Brian HensonTo anyone who's trying to be an artist, in any medium, it's a very odd and lonely and nerve-wracking and scary process when you let anybody see what you're working on. You have to learn to listen to your instincts. Absorb other people's advice, opinions, or whatever it may be from the outside world, but at the end of the day, you have to be true to whatever it is that you're trying to say in that work.
Brian Henson