While watching the hit movie Singin’ in the Rain, I was so impressed with the character of Kathy Selden. Being her age, as she was only 18 when she acted in this film, I think its so interesting to try and put myself in her shoes and try to imagine how hard this film would have been to carry out in the way she did. I thought her dancing, singing, and acting were so impressive. I also wondered about the struggles that this must have come with, being so young compared to everyone else in the main cast. Her costar and love interest being 40 years old. Being a searcher this week, I knew that I wanted to hear more from the actor who played her, Debbie Reynolds. Fortunately enough, I found an interview of Debbie Reynolds talking about her experience working on the film posted 4 years ago on Youtube. Debbie Reynolds died in 2016 so this interview was posted after her passing.

When asked about her experience in Singin’ in the Rain the first thing that Reynolds mentions is the fact that she had never danced prior to the film. This was really surprising as a viewer to hear, as the film consisted of a large amount of dancing scenes and complicated choreography. She explains that she went though 8 hour dance rehearsals each day for about 2 months in preparation. One scene that she mentioned in specific was the scene that included her, Gene Kelly, and Donald O’ Conner as Don Lockwood and Cosmo Brown. The big hit of the song titled “Good Morning” that people still know about to this day. She explains that this was one of the toughest scenes to film, especially because of the couch which was placed in the center of the room they were dancing in. According to Reynolds “They all had to land on the couch synchronized or else it wasn’t any good.” She said that they had to shoot that scene over 40 times and the time rehearsals were over her shoes were full of blood.

When asked about how it felt working with Gene Kelly, Reynolds states that it “was tough because he was the director. So he was worried about everything. He was worried about the concept, the lighting, the cinematography… there was no time to fool around on set…” In addition to that, this interview contained clips of Donald O’ Conner who played Cosmo Brown talk about Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds’ dynamic in this film. One particular story from set that he talked about was also about the filming of “Good Morning.” He said that Kelly had an outburst on him and yelled that Brown needed to “cut it out and focus.” Although later in the day Kelly apologized to Brown and said that this was a misunderstanding as he was actually upset at Reynolds for not understanding the steps quick enough, but didn’t want to take it out on her in risk of losing her. Hearing about this type of dynamic really puts how vulnerable Reynolds must of felt on that set, being so young and the most inexperienced as a dancer. She later wrote “Singin’ in the Rain and childbirth were the two hardest things I ever had to do in my life.”

A final thing that I want to touch on is the question “is there anything about the movie when you see it now that you wish you could redo?” that Reynolds gets asked. She replies “my speaking voice, that was very high in those days.” I think this is interesting because it seems that after all of these years the memory of being so much younger than all her cast still stays with her, and is clear that it must have really hard for her going through it.

After listening to this interview I feel like I have a much better sense of who Debbie Reynolds is and how she felt throughout the shooting of Singin’ in the Rain. She is a huge inspiration for me as she was the same age as me now during filming and executed it so beautifully after so much hard work.