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Aram Rappaport is the creator, writer and director of the new miniseries THE ARTIST, available for free on thenetwork.stream, a platform that Rappaport founded. Rappaport previously wrote and directed the films INNOCENT, SUMMER SONG, SYRUP, and THE CRASH, and was a writer and director on the miniseries THE GREEN VEIL.

Set in the first decade of the twentieth century, Rappaport’s THE ARTIST combines historical figures and fictional characters. Among the latter is robber baron Norman Henry (Mandy Patinkin), who at the outset is murdered at a party in his upstate New York mansion. In flashbacks, we see that Norman has commissioned French artist Edgar Degas (Danny Huston) to do a painting, has an aspiring ballerina (Ana Mulvoy-Ten) on staff, and is in talks with Thomas Edison (Hank Azaria).

Patti LuPone plays Rosie Morsch, sister of Henry’s aggrieved wife Marian (Janet McTeer). LuPone (for those who really, truly don’t follow stage) is Broadway royalty, a three-time Tony Award-winning performer (who was nominated for five more Tonys). LuPone starred for four seasons on the TV dramedy LIFE GOES ON and was nominated for an Emmy for her guest turn on FRASIER. Her other film and television credits include LBJ: THE EARLY YEARS, DRIVING MISS DAISY, SUMMER OF SAM, SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET IN CONCERT, OZ, COMPANY, PENNY DREADFUL, AMERICAN HORROR STORY, BEAU IS AFRAID, and AGATHA ALL ALONG.

When they get together from separate locations for a Zoom interview, the topic of discussion is theoretically THE ARTIST. However, LuPone and Rappaport had such a wonderful time together on the project that they mostly just want to talk about how great it was working with each other.

Prior to meeting about the prospect of LuPone joining the cast of THE ARTIST, she explains, “We didn’t know each other.”

“I obviously am a superfan, like everybody else on the planet,” Rappaport says.

LuPone laughs, and Rappaport continues. “I harassed her team. There was nothing written for her, but I said, ‘Can I please just meet with her for fifteen minutes, I’ll come sit backstage after her show, and let me just talk about this thing, and see if she’ll let me write something for her, in her voice, and if she doesn’t want to do it after that, she doesn’t have to do it. But can I just have a few minutes, just to talk to her?’ And luckily someone thought that that was an okay idea, and we sat down and we had a great dinner. I didn’t realize how energetic Patti LuPone is after the hour of eleven PM, but the dinner was long and illustrious, and then here we are.” He queries LuPone. “I don’t know if you remember it differently.”

“No, I don’t,” LuPone replies. “And now I want to do everything that Aram writes, everything.”

Rappaport sounds sincerely flattered. “Oh, thank you.”

So, what was Rappaport’s pitch to LuPone over their first shared meal?

LuPone explains, “There was no pitch, there was just dinner, and there was just two creative people talking. I think you can tell pretty early on whether or not you’re going to have a communication with somebody that you might possibly work with or not. And you can also tell pretty early on whether it’s going to be collaborative or not. With Aram – and I talk about him like he’s not here – there’s just this generosity of spirit, and there’s this openness. As an actor, we’re on a theatrical totem pole, and I want to find someone that’s kind, that’s intelligent, that will guide me in his vision, not somebody that’s going to berate me, reduce me. And just at dinner, talking with Aram, I could see what a kind, generous he was. So, who wouldn’t want to work with him?”

Rappaport picks up the narrative. “I think we talked about our insecurities more than we talked about the project. We were sitting there talking about our self-doubts and loathing about what could we do better. Mandy was already in the project, and Patti’s obviously worked with Mandy, and they’re great friends, so there was trust there, a little bit, but I think it was just so nice to sit and have a conversation with someone who I so deeply respected, and to hear her say things like, ‘I can’t wait to do this next thing. I want to be better. I want to evolve.’ It was like, ‘What? You are a perfect human [LuPone laughs] who still feels like you can do it better.’ Okay, so I’m going to feel like that forever, God willing, I’m half as successful. And I think it was just like, to be able to have that conversation and say, ‘Okay, well, then maybe I can write you something. Who knows if it’s going to work, but if we both fail together, we know that we did it because we wanted to and had a lot of fun.”

“And we had a lot of fun shooting, too,” LuPone elaborates. “I’m just sorry that I’m not in it more, because it looked like one of the best shoots. I would have wanted to be on that set every single day they were shooting. It’s fantastic. I’m begging Aram and [producer] Hilary [Shor] to put me in everything that they do.”

“And she will be,” Rappaport affirms. “Anything she has time for, we’ll take her.”

What was Rappaport’s initial inspiration for THE ARTIST? He relates that it was, in fact, relatively recent events: the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes. “There was this insane disparity between these artists who really sacrificed everything to create and were asking for very little, and these kingpins of the studios that were leveraged up to their eyeballs, forty, fifty billion dollars in debt, and yet they still felt like they controlled all of the artists who delivered the output.

“So, it felt like, if we could set something at the end of this robust industry-defining period, where these robber barons made a ton of money, and it was a failing robber baron, and he still felt like he could control the arts, that would be interesting. So, that was the beginning, and then it was like, ‘Oh, what if it was the most famous painter? What if it was the most famous inventor? What if it was the O.G. Kardashian, Evelyn Nesbit [played by Ever Anderson]? And what if we put them all in the room and made them incredibly desperate and then we find out that he’s broke?’ That was the basis for the concept.”

LuPone notes that, as far as she can tell, everyone in the cast of THE ARTIST were just as happy making it as she and Rappaport were. “I had dinner with Jill Hennessy [who plays Evelyn Nesbit’s mother and her boyfriend and my cousin, Tom Fontana, and she said, ‘It was the best time.’ And when you hear that from another actor – you may have had a great time, somebody else may have had a lousy time. But that was the consistent response from actors, that they had the best time. And that’s all a tribute to Aram, because it’s not easy to do something quickly, do something on location, and do something with people you don’t know. And Aram made it so easy. And that’s a great tribute to him.”

“I’m going to push back on that,” Rappaport states. “Patti came in [on set] and it was as if the President of the Universe had arrived on set.” So many people involved in the miniseries wanted to see LuPone act that “we had to bring in folding chairs.”

LuPone laughs but doesn’t dispute Rappaport’s report as he continues. “It was like every member of the crew – there were people that I didn’t even know worked on this show who were sitting in that room for Patti’s scenes, at the edge of their chairs, like this was the final performance of a Broadway show.”

Speaking of Broadway shows, Rappaport reveals that LuPone was doing one during the shoot. “She could only work on Mondays, had monologues in this show with us, and I felt guilty about it, because I just wanted her to say more and more things and be in more and more scenes, and I was like, ‘Eventually, she’ll push back if she thinks she can’t do this, and I’ll just be selfish about it.’

“She came to set and shot maybe fifteen or twenty pages a day, and she nailed it on one take, and would sit down, and she had an audience of a hundred people, and she would get up and do it again, and it was perfect in a different way. I just thought, ‘Is this what life can be like on set with someone that you really click with?’ It can be this easy and this exciting to sit back and say, ‘Well, let her just do her thing.’”

“Shouldn’t it be easy, though?” LuPone reflects. “There are a lot of stage actors working for Aram in this film, and I think that we know our responsibility, which is, come prepared.”

What would Rappaport and LuPone most like people to get out of watching THE ARTIST?

LuPone goes first. “Well, they want to see more of what comes out of Aram Rappaport’s mind.”

Rappaport laughs and protests, “Oh, stop it.”

But LuPone persists. “I want people to go, ‘I want more of him.’ [THE ARTIST] is wacky. It’s fantastic.”

“And I’ll say that when Patti comes into this show, she’s a pivotal character in how the murder unfolds. She does not sing in this show, but there is one moment that she belts it. It was an unbelievable moment to witness in person and I think, on film, it’s beautiful. So, I would say that that’s what I look forward to people seeing.”

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