How do people envision that? How do they invent that for themselves?
"You mean, your everyday Joe on the street?"
Let's put it this way, most of us never put ourselves on a path to get ourselves in front of 10,000 screaming people. Some of us do. You have to be able to imagine yourself in that position.
"I can assure you I never imagined myself in front of 10,000 people. Since I was a child (I cannot lie) I've always enjoyed having an audience - but 10,000 people is something you cannot imagine. It evolves into that. I can honestly say I never expected what's happened to me, and I could never have expected, like, performing, for instance, in a soccer stadium in front of 120,000 people."
After I said it, I realized 10,000 was a pretty conservative number. When she arrived in Argentina to play Eva Peron, however, Madonna was not welcomed like Evita's second coming. There were demonstrations, there was rude graffiti on the road from the airport, and she was greeted with protests, headlines, resentment, even hatred.
People wanted Madonna to. . .
". . . get out! I think they were angry that, you know, that we were coming in and making a movie about their heroine when they hadn't done it themselves. I think that kind of ticked them off. And then there were the people who thought she was a saint. They thought only Mother Teresa could portray her in a movie. Then there were other people who thought she was a sinner, and they didn't want a tribute being made to her. So it got very confusing.
"If you go out into the provinces, they still have her picture on their walls. She had a profound effect on these people. I can't explain it. Plus, she died so young, and she's been kept alive in that sort of myth-making machine."
The protests helped to firm the government's opposition to allowing Madonna to film (or even stand) on Evita's balcony. But then the president came around.
"I think up until that point, all he had to go on was hearsay," she said. "The stage version of the musical portrays a very one-dimensional version of her. It doesn't show her in a very humane way; it doesn't show any vulnerability, it doesn't explain her past. Alan Parker had the chance to do that in a movie, and I explained that to the president. I also think that once he heard the music, he was very moved by it. I played him a lot of the stuff that we had already recorded, and I think that I convinced him that we were going to treat her in a respectful manner in the film."
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