In 2012 Debbie Reynolds did an interview with Turner Classic Movies where she gave a deep dive into her experience while filming Singing in the Rain. Throughout this interview there are also clips of interviews from other important people involved with the film like Donald O’Connor (Cosmo) and Patricia Ward Kelly (Gene Kelly’s Wife).

Debbie talked about how it was to work with Donald and Gene, especially since they were both incredible dancers and she had never danced before. According to the interview she had to go through a two month long intensive rehearsal before filming even started. Then, each dance number took significant takes to complete. Debbie recalls how they started filming for the “Good morning” sequence before 8 am, and finished shooting the same scene that night. Then, after working the whole day to film an impressive dance scene, with Debbie’s feet bleeding by the end of it, they used the first take.

According to Donald O’Connor, at one point Gene starting screaming at him about how he was being slow and his choreography was off. Donald took the yelling and moved on. Then, later that night at a bar across from the studio, Donald saw Gene. Gene came up to him and apologized for yelling at him, saying that he really wanted to scream at Debbie for not knowing what she was doing, but figured if he did that it would break her, so he took it out on Donald instead.

These types of interviews that provide a deep cut into what went into making a film are so important because they give viewers context to the masterpiece that they watched. When people watch a movie like Singing in the Rain, they don’t think of the painstaking time and detail that went into crafting just one scene, or how tedious and meticulous Gene Kelly was behind the scenes, they just see the final product. This interview gives a window into the creation of such a timeless classic, and gives enormous credit to Debbie Reynolds, Donald O’Connor, and Gene Kelly for putting in an insane amount of time and effort in order to create something so magical.