Tribeca 2024: Linda Perry: Let It Die Here | Interview with Don Hardy

Grammy-nominated songwriter and producer Linda Perry wants to give audiences an authentic and honest view into her life in her brand-new documentary, Linda Perry: Let It Die Here. The film had its world premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival as part of the Spotlight+ selection. Perry has been part of the music industry for 30 years and is known for writing mega hits for Pink, Christina Aguilera, Adele, Ariana Grande, Gwen Stefani, Alicia Keys, and many more. However, she is most known for being the lead singer and songwriter of 4 Non Blondes. The band is most famous for their 1993 song “What’s Up?”.

The insightful documentary comes from director Don Hardy, who gives an intimate and raw look into Perry’s life. Perry is looking to find her voice while dealing with her past and present struggles as she tries to maintain her family and career. Perry also questions the meaning of her life. The Tribeca alum returns to the festival, and we spoke with Hardy as he opened up about making a connection with Perry and why it was so important to share her story.

Kristin Ciliberto: What I love about Tribeca is that they always get unique music documentaries. Linda Perry was one I wasn’t expecting to see a documentary on. So, what was it like working with Linda and how did you get her to say yes and get her to be this vulnerable for this project?

Don Hardy: It was an interesting story that goes back to the film I did before, which is called Citizen Penn (2020), that follows Sean Penn’s work in Haiti. I had known Sean for quite a while. When the earthquake happened in Haiti in 2010 and I was able to go there, we started creating footage we would send out to news stations, and then I would do some fundraising videos for him. Then, ultimately, 10 years later, it turned into this film. When we showed a trailer for that film at the gala for Sean’s organization, as we did every year, it turns out Linda and her former significant other Sara Gilbert were there in the audience and saw the trailer. Based on that, Linda wanted to score it. She got in touch with me through my producing partner, Sean Daly, and said she wanted to score this film. I was initially kind of reluctant because, you know, I’ve heard the stories about Linda and how she can be difficult. When you’re making a film, especially one that’s already got Sean Penn involved, I wasn’t looking to have another difficult person to work with. I went and met with her and she was so down to earth and seemed to want to be part of the team. So, I said yes and we started working on the score for that film together and ended up forging a nice relationship. This was during COVID as well. I asked her if she would ever be willing to tell her story. She was pretty reluctant to say yes, but because we had a relationship, I think she opened the door to me and I just went in there with my camera and started filming a little here and there to see where things would go. Little did I know the path it took would take over the next couple of years, with the ups and downs of her life, and the honesty and vulnerability she shared with us. It was profound and unexpected.

KC: She brings a lot to the table and she’s somebody who has been through so much, from talking about her mother, her health, and mental health struggles. The last time I saw a documentary that went in-depth concerning her mental health was the Selena Gomez documentary My Mind & Me (2022). Out of all the musicians in the world, why did you think it was important for her to share her story?

DH: I think Linda is unique in so many ways. Unfortunately, there are very few women in the music industry that have accomplished what she has and been so outspoken, you know, kind of played the game by their own rules for so long. As I got to know her a bit better, and saw some of her creativity on display, I felt like it was unique. It wasn’t that I spent a good deal of time in studios over the years. Generally, songs are manufactured in the studio. You do bits and pieces here and there, but with Linda, it just didn’t flow that way. I’m fascinated by that creative process and seeing the spark of an idea that then ignites into a song that you’ll be singing 30 years from now, like the iconic songs “What’s Up?”, “Beautiful”, “Let’s Get the Party Started”, or so many of the songs that she’s written over the years. Just getting to know her process better made me think this was worthy of showing others, this insider view. I had no idea at that point how personal the movie would get, and we just didn’t know the challenges she was going to face were going to arise. I thought it was going to be more about her creative process and who she was collaborating with. We have a scene that I like a lot with Kate Hudson in the film. It shows how Linda can coax such amazing performances out of other artists because, in that scene, what I saw was Kate coming in and not feeling the power of her voice yet. Linda kind of gave her that push—you need to lean into it, and she did. Kate embraced it and made it her own. I thought the movie would be full of more scenes like that. I think about halfway through, it did take a turn into becoming a much more personal story about legacy and mental health. Are you on the right path? Are you doing what you’re supposed to do in this world? So, to me, that is just as interesting as the creative behind-the-scenes look. I think, you know, we’re in a unique spot with this film in that we have both on display for people to hopefully connect with.

KC: What was the most surprising thing you learned about Linda through this whole process?

DH: The most surprising thing for me was just getting to know her as a mother while also balancing her relationship with her own mother. She had a difficult childhood and now she’s trying to change that for the next generation, for her daughter, Rhodes. Rhodes is having a much different experience than Linda did. She’s having a much more supportive home and is able to be who she wants to be. I was just really taken with that and obviously thinking about my relationship with my parents. I lost my father just before we started working on this, it all became part of it. I feel that for all of us who were lucky enough to work on this film and got to spend time with Linda, we all came through this as changed human beings. That’s the best part of making these films.

KC: With the participants you have in this film, one of the people who shocked me the most was Kate Hudson. I know she’s been slowly making her way to releasing music. So, how did you get Kate, Dolly, and Christina to participate in this documentary?

DH: Each story is a little bit different. With Dolly, she and Linda have such a unique relationship because they’re incredibly different. Dolly is always perfectly made up and put together, and Linda likes to come to the studio with a hat on top of a hat. They each share a common approach to how they create music. When we reached out to Dolly to be part of this documentary, she said absolutely, and the same with Christina. With artists of this size, you’re always dealing with a manager on top of a manager kind of thing. We didn’t want to fill it with a lot of interviews, but we wanted to have the right interviews, the ones that can illuminate different parts of Linda’s career and just connect with her in different ways. For Dolly, she met Linda, I believe, in 2017/2018 when they were working on the Dumplin’ (2018) score together. With Christina, that goes back almost 30 years when they collaborated on “Beautiful” and so many other songs. Brandi Carlile is a huge artist now too. She tells the story about being a kid reaching out to Linda, and always being an inspiration for her. We felt like those were three unique voices. Linda let me know that she had reached out to Kate Hudson—I think their kids went to the same school. She had heard Kate doing a rendition of, I believe it was, the Katy Perry song “Firework”. Linda reached out to Kate and told her she needed to do an album now. Kate said, okay, I’ll come in and then they allowed me in there to film it. We were there for a big part of the process. We spent a lot of time in the studio with Linda and Kate together as she was creating the album that was just released. Those are the things that I love. I love seeing collaboration, creativity, and the unknown. That’s what Linda, I feel, sets her apart from other producers—just allowing space for that magical thing to happen. We saw it over and over while making this movie.

KC: The one thing that also stood out to me was the animation. Why did you want to include the animation for this film?

DH: Yeah, as we were filming with Linda, there were so many interesting stories that came up and that’s a big part of documentaries, how to visualize this and tell this story that needs to be told. But, you know, I didn’t want to just queue up archival footage. I also didn’t want to get a random video of a reel-to-reel going. I wanted to do something that gave this a unique feeling. It kind of got into Linda’s head and how she thinks about things. I believe it was one of my producer partners, Daniel Seliger, who suggested maybe we try to animate this. We have seen the work of this company, Studio Linguini. They’ve done a couple of music videos that stood out. We reached out to them and asked if they would be interested in tackling something like this because this is unique. Handmade, stop motion, like they create the puppets. It’s not computers, it’s all man-made delicate work. They were inspired by the challenge of it, to do something longer form like this. They became great partners and I learned so much about the process of animating things. It’s kind of slow and meticulous and once you commit to doing it, you’re kind of down a path. It was great! I hope to work with them again. I think the response I’ve heard so far, as we’re just coming off of our premiere, is that people who have seen it seemed to respond to it and get what we’re going for here. The animation gives us a path into Linda’s mind and allows us to illuminate some stories that otherwise we wouldn’t be able to.

KC: What are your top three favorite Linda Perry songs that she has written or ones that she performed with her band?

DH: I think you know you can’t look past “Beautiful” and you can’t look past “What’s Up?”. Those are two of my top three. Then she has these new songs that she performed, some of them last night (the documentary had its premiere on 6/6/2024) and more will be performed. There’s one in particular called “Strangest Places” that I think is going to be a huge song for her and another one called “Heavenly Creature” that she wrote for her child, Rhodes. I feel when people hear this song it’s going to be the next great ballad, like in the vein of “Beautiful”. I just think that it’s strong writing and also hearing Linda’s voice on new material. It’s got to bring a tear to your eye. It’s just, it’s been missing for too long.

KC: I feel like “Beautiful” and “What’s Up” are just so iconic, given the fact both have been played so much in pop culture, films, and TV series. You don’t realize it, but she’s become a cultural icon. How does it feel to have your movie premiere at Tribeca?

DH: This Tribeca festival means everything to me. Tribeca was one of the first places to really showcase my work. I think it was like 13 years ago I had a movie here. Then I had a project sponsored by the Tribeca Film Institute, but that’s since gone away. We then were supposed to have our Sean Penn movie premiere here in 2020, and that was taken away because of COVID. They didn’t have the festival that year, so to be back here with this one and to have Linda here in what is New York—the best city in the world—we’re able to be here and do this! It’s incredibly special. We had the concert and we have a lot of people from our crew here. It’s humbling, and we had a sold-out screening with like 500 people last night (6/6/2024). We ended with a giant sing-along to “What’s Up?”, it doesn’t get any better than that. On a very personal note, this is the first time I’ve been able to see a movie that I’ve made with a group of people since before the pandemic. We had a movie in 2018 called Pick of the Litter (2018), and we did a million film festivals with it and then it went into theaters. So, we didn’t. It was a little bit of burnout on all of the film festival stuff, then when it goes away you do miss it because that’s the only chance to know if what you’ve been working on—pretty much siloed, like making documentaries is a pretty solitary gig with years of spending a lot of time in dark edit bays making decisions—were the right ones in front of an audience. So, to have that last night was incredibly special. I’m looking forward to the screenings that are coming up on Saturday and Sunday. Just to be sharing this movie with audiences, I think it’s gonna lead to a lot of profound discussions. If last night was any example of what people want to talk about after this, I think they want to share their personal experiences about struggling with mental health and/or losing a family member, or in particular, maybe just getting a little older and thinking, “What is my legacy? You know, am I really on the right path?” The conversations after last night’s screening were intense and awesome, and I just hope they can continue.

Explore our exclusive coverage of the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival here.