Interview: Sunita Mani Talks Filming the SPIRITED Musical Numbers

Sunita Mani is bringing that "Christmas Mornin' Feeling" in Apple TV+'s new movie musical, Spirited.

Each Christmas Eve, the Ghost of Christmas Present (Will Ferrell) selects one dark soul to be reformed by a visit from three spirits. But this season, he picked the wrong Scrooge. Clint Briggs (Ryan Reynolds) turns the tables on his ghostly host until Present finds himself reexamining his own past, present and future.

For the first time, 'A Christmas Carol' is told from the perspective of the ghosts in this hilarious musical twist on the classic Dickens tale.

Featuring original music numbers by Oscar winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul ("La La Land") and production numbers choreographed by Chloe Arnold ("The Late Late Show with James Corden"), the film also stars Octavia Spencer, Patrick Page, and Joe Tippett.

BroadwayWorld caught up with Mani to go behind the filming of Spirited's musical numbers, what it was like working with the all-star cast, and what she thinks audiences can take away from the film!

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How are you feeling now that spirited is finally out there?

I'm feeling so good. It's been a long time coming.It's actually funny, it's dawning on me that, you know, its season is upon us, like the Christmas season. Our premiere was early November and we shot it in July. I have this like, funny sense of timing about it, that it's actually a Christmas film. I'm excited for it to have its time during this Christmas season too. I'm really excited.

It must be such a funny experience filming a Christmas movie in July. What was the whole filming experience like in general?

It was surreal. The Christmas in July aspect of it and also it being like a bit coming out of the pandemic, like another wave of shutdown-y vibes. July, 2021, I don't know, we were sort of like coming out of some sort of lockdown in my memory. There's been so many now. But I remember it was like entering the world of song and dance after being closed off for so long and it was truly like an injection of joy being in rehearsals, in a room with people and collaborating. I couldn't believe it. The whole thing was quite too good to be true.

What was your first impression of this new form of Christmas Carol adaptation when it first came to you?

It is such a clever spin on the Christmas Carol story that we know and love. The fact that it's told from the ghost's perspective and there's this world that we call "Ghost World" in the movie. My impression was just this fun and fresh and I can see it and the fact that it's woven with music just makes it original and something that I hadn't seen before. I was really, really excited about the musical aspect of it, actually. The, the movie being called Spirited is just so true to what the script is to me.

You mentioned the musical aspect of it. Do you have like a musical theater background at all?

Not like capital "E" experience. I've just been like such a ham my whole life. Not to diminish musical theater training or like that at all, but I've always loved just the song, the dance, the acting. It's something that I've always done, even if it was in my little rag tag pageantry way. But I lived for this experience. I would love to do more and it's something that I feel is so amazing to get to do on film because it brings the theatrical experience and the live element into the recorded space with editing and production value that's different than theater, but you still get that magic. I love so much the spirit of rehearsals and collaboration.

You were totally killing it with that dancing in the opening number. What was it like rehearsing those musical numbers for the cameras?

I do have a dance background. I grew up in a small town in the south and I have quite a varied dance background in clogging and South Indian cultural dance called Bharatanatyam. I was doing the competition dance team in high school. So like costume and theatricality is just like, I live for it. It was like coming home or something. It was not as daunting as the acting was with legends like Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds and Octavia Spencer. The dancing and the musical aspect of things I was just kind of holding onto as like, "Oh, okay. At least I have this aspect."

But it was so supportive, very tailored to what you wanted to bring or could bring within, the bigger picture. Musical directors and onsite vocal coaches and choreographers were so amazing, so energetic, so supportive and really just gave us such confidence, unbelievable amounts of like, "You can do it." It was really sad when it was over.

It really was such an all-star cast. What was it like working with them?

So, again, I used the phrase "Too good to be true." Just utterly wonderful humans. So nice and everyone wanted to have a good time and just very respectful and good natured about the environment that we were creating for everyone. We were all coming to work hours and hours and hours a day, so the environment was very warm. It is a Christmas movie, it is a feel-good movie. It was very easy to fall into, which at first was like of course it's intimidating and I didn't know if that would be the case, but I was so welcomed and so supported to improvise and put my spin on the character and that was so exciting because I loved the character off the bat, like from page one. Then the process was so full of life and fun and getting to put myself into it even more than I could have imagined.

So do you see any of yourself in your character? Did you relate to her at all?

Yeah, I do. I think her false confidence is super funny. This kind of dry directness and forwardness I think is so funny. I can relate to that sensibility a lot, although I do feel like her confidence and prowess is something I could maybe aspire to have more of. But yeah, I think just like being surefooted in the room and kind of her unapologetic nature, while also wanting to be a good person and charming, I think that balance was hard to find, but I think it was a good balance of who I am and who this character is too. It was a great melding of me and Past.

That one scene you have with Will Ferrell about your trip to see Ryan Reynolds was one of the funniest parts of the film.

That was one of my audition scenes and I remember just being so excited to shoot that. It just really clicked in the audition. I was like, okay. I get her.

What do you want people to take away from this movie during the holiday season?

I feel like this answer, I could talk about it forever, but short answer is I think to reflect on yourself and how you treat people. It's like an age old story. It's a tale we keep telling of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." We're so polarized and I feel like if this movie can sort of ask the question of like can we just look at our neighbors in the eyes and connect a little and just do a little good and not worry about like the principle definitions of good and evil and like splitting us apart, but actually just finding this common ground of doing good.

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Watch the lyric video for "Do A Little Good" from Spirited here: