THE STORY OF A SCENE in five steps

When he’s not making movies, Rupert Goold works as the artistic director of London’s Almeida Theatre. Here he explains how his knowledge of both stage and screen performance informed a key scene in his latest film, Judy the electrifying moment when Renée Zellweger steps up to deliver her first musical number as Judy Garland.

1 Finding the location

“One of the things that’s interesting about the original venue, Talk of the Town, is that it had a thrust stage, which means it stuck out into the audience. Most theatres in this country have a circle that pushes forward, so to thrust out it looks bizarre; they’re just not designed that way. There are a couple, like The Old Vic,