A Chat with Tom Hulce

Walt Disney Records' Andre Mika talked with Tom Hulce after a recording session for the Hunchback of Notre Dame Read-Along.

WDR:
When you were approached by The Walt Disney Company to star as Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, did the opportunity of singing the role, as well as acting it, draw you to it, or did it scare you?

Tom Hulce:
Actually, it was the possibility of singing that intrigued me. As an actor, I've never done any voice-over work for which I found that sort of "standing in front of a microphone" to be a particularly comfortable experience. I climb into a part physically first, so that's been challenging. I definitely harbored musical fantasies.

WDR:
Do you have any background in music or musical theater?

Tom Hulce:
Yeah. I sang a lot up until my voice changed, and had a fair amount of musical training because of that. I was pretty serious about it. I briefly played the violin. My mom tried to get me to take piano lessons, but I didn't have the patience.

Picture of Tom Hulce When I first went to New York and started working, Pippin was playing. My first job was in a Broadway play called Equus. I was hired to understudy the main part. Across the street was Pippin with Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the lyrics for The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Because I needed to be at the theater, but not actually working, I made a deal with him in which I could stand in the back of Pippin and watch it over and over again. I'm a big fan of his and also of Alan Menken's, since Little Shop of Horrors.

WDR:
What's it like working with Alan Menken and the The Hunchback of Notre Dame production team? Did you enjoy that?

Tom Hulce:
Yeah, it's great. I wish I were where they were, because I'm in front of the microphone in the soundproof booth. They're all in the other room. You know, they can say anything they want -- I'm sure what they said was extremely generous. But I can only imagine when those moments of frustration come for them.

WDR:
How did you prepare musically for The Hunchback of Notre Dame? Did you do any private study before you got into the role?

Tom Hulce:
I came in and sang what would be the main song for Quasimodo ["Out There"], which the studio definitely needed to hear before they were comfortable. And then I worked with the music director for the movie; went into the first session, which was unbelievable. It was at a place called The Hit Factory in New York. You've seen all those videos of people with headphones on their ears, singing. . . . I'd never done it, and here I was. There was about a 77-piece orchestra. It was an overwhelming and breathtaking experience.

WDR:
Could you describe the musical process for The Hunchback of Notre Dame ? Did you record the music and the soundtrack before or after you voiced Quasimodo's dialogue?

Tom Hulce:
It's been a process that spread over two years. The first two sessions I did were both the same week. One was a first-dialogue session. The other was to record "Out There"; and then, over the months, there were various sessions, often redoing stuff we had done before as it got reworked or rewritten. Or somebody had a better idea, and so we'd do it again.

WDR:
As an actor, do you prepare differently for an off-camera role than you do for being on-camera, or onstage? Were there any unique mental preparations for being behind the mike?

Tom Hulce:
It took me a good long while to figure out how to do something just for a microphone, instead of developing it through rehearsing and physically doing it. Actually, what I ended up doing was working with somebody in a kind of peculiar rehearsal process, so that I could find a way to identify what was uniquely "Quasimodo" for me.

Another Picture of Tom Hulce WDR:
Any advice for young actors and performers on how to prepare for a role that involves music and singing while in character?

Tom Hulce:
Tough question. I haven't done a lot of parts that involve singing. Obviously, I had a big collaborative experience with a major amount of music in Amadeus. That was a phenomenal adventure that included many hours a day in preparation. Because of the amount of musical work that was included in the story -- and also because the brilliance of the man meant that he could do effortlessly what would be very hard for most of us to do -- my job became not only to learn how to do all of those things, but learn how to do them so well that it looked like I didn't even know I was doing them.

WDR:
A lot of animators at the studio think that The Hunchback of Notre Dame is the best film they've done in decades --

Tom Hulce:
Great!

WDR:
How do you feel about being a part of the Disney legacy?

Tom Hulce:
Well, that's a very cool thing. . .a very cool thing. The Disney films that live most potently in my imagination are Fantasia and some other early ones. If this is anything like that, then I couldn't be more thrilled to be a part of it. I've heard people talk about how this is a return to the classic style. I'm very excited to see it.