MJ Delaney Tells Us What She Really Really Wants

Did you realise it’s been 20 years since the Spice Girls told us what they really really wanted? In the two decades since the Girl Power anthem, a lot has been said to address the gender equality divide but the battle is far from over. With that in mind, Project Everyone (the movement started by Richard Curtis to make the world aware of the United Nations’ Global Goals) enlisted the help of Moxie Pictures’ superstar director MJ Delaney to create a remake of the 90’s classic involving stars and locations from areas most affected by gender bias.

Featuring actors, singers and dancers from India, South Africa, Nigeria, Canada, Sri Lanka, the UK and the US. The #WhatIReallyReallyWant film and campaign calls on people to share a picture with the hashtag, which will then be presented to world leaders at the UN General Assembly in September.

We loved the video and it’s important message, so managed to grab a few moments with MJ before she flew back to New York to chat about how the project came to her, reimagining the distinctive Spice Girls spirit with a cast of fresh performers and bringing important messages to a global audience with kickass confidence.

How did you get involved in the project?

I went to a meeting with Richard Curtis (as we both live in New York) at the Project Everyone HQ, which is around the corner from the Moxie office. He knew of me because when I did 'Newport State Of Mind' back in the day we remade it for Comic Relief with Welsh celebrities. We Skyped in with Gail and Kate and various other Project Everyone people and they basically said "Do you want to remake the Spice Girls 'Wannabe' video with different groups of girls from around the world?", to which my answer was obviously "Yes please!". 

Was ‘Wannabe’ always the song discussed? Was that ever questioned?

'Wannabe' was always there, as it was the hashtag #whatIreallyreallywant that drove the idea. There were discussions along the way about whether certain lyrics needed to be changed, but it was always going to be that song.

What were the early stages of prep? How did you decide on the regions to be featured and who to put in them?

Project Everyone had ideas of what needed to be covered. For example, for the slogan 'An end to violence against women', it made sense to set the section in India as there had been such high-profile instances of that situation occurring and there was a ground-swell of protests in that part of the world. I was super-keen that anything linked to quality education for girls should be set in the Middle East as I think that image of a girl in a hijab brings up the connotations of Malala and everything she's been fighting for - she's now a cultural touchstone for all of those messages.

In Africa we chose Cape Town as it was an easy place to pull all of our cast from Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa into one location, as well as the obvious benefits of being able to facilitate a shoot - it's got everything you'll ever need and more there.

We initially were hoping to film at the United Nations building in New York, but that proved to be a logistical nightmare, so it made sense to reference the original video instead and move the shoot to London. For that section we had three girls from the UK, one from Canada and one from the USA.

Who were the guiding voices for the film? Was it a collaborative process?

Because it was entirely funded through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation we were very careful about the budget but we still had to travel around the world, so on the shoot it was just myself, Lucy Tate the producer and Leo Bund who is a DP and a Steadicam op, which was perfect as we did the whole thing Steadicam. So, for the most part, it was just the three of us working it out. 

However, we had Hannah and the team from Project Everyone who were hugely helpful in facilitating everything as we went along, such as getting in touch with the cast. We obviously ran everything past them too - what we were designing for the slogans on the banners and the costumes we were putting the girls in, etc. They gave us so so much creative freedom and they were so wonderful to work for - they were the best clients I've had in my entire career. It was a delight.

How was the cast assembled?

When I came on board I was really keen that we had cast members that could bring with them their own followers, so that we would automatically have an audience for the film that would go beyond Spice Girls fans and active feminists. So basically we needed girls that were in the right age bracket to be 'Spice Girls', were great performers and, most importantly, had a following of their own. Often with films like this they tend to make a splash in the West but they don't get any traction with the people they're speaking on behalf of, so, for example, a performer like Jacqueline Fernandez, who's a huge Bollywood star, brings with her 5 million Instagram followers. Now that she's posted it, we're getting loads of hits from that part of the world. Because of things like that it really has gone global - we've been all over the news in Brazil and Australia. 

The theory behind Global Goals is to create a truly international voice that crosses cultures and continents and languages, so that at the United Nations in September it's a 'world' asking to be seen, as one. It's something that's uniquely possible now, due to social media, that hasn't been previously.

The choreography is punctuated with important, powerful visual messages. Why was the decision made to display them in that way?

It was important to us that the slogans were seen as part of the moment. It would have been a shame to stick a voice-over over the song (laughs). The idea was always that, even though it's just 60 seconds, we should make a real music video rather than just a commercial.

Was that the original ‘Wannabe’ house at the end of the vid? 

Sadly no. We recced it - it was actually the St Pancreas Hotel that they shot that in which has now been completely refurbished and looks VERY posh. We only had 14 seconds to get them from the stairs to the bus, so we went and looked at the original location and the distance was just too much.

So instead it's Ealing Town Hall - we did a bit of art department to make it match.

The campaign has already made an impact. What messages are you hoping to see come through in the hashtag?

I guess the more people that share images with the #whatireallyreallywant hashtag, the louder the collective voice will be in September. I just hope that people engage with the call-to-action at the end - there's so much despondency at the state of the world on both sides of the Atlantic, so the fact that this is a positive message and there's an active call-to-arms allowing people to 'do' something should motivate people to become engaged and we can make the change.

What’s up next for you?

I'm working on a proof of concept for a feature film, so I need to finish that and then, hopeful, shoot the movie itself.

Who’s your favourite Spice Girl?

Oooooo, it's hard. I'm going to go for Geri, just because there's a video of me at my friend's party where we do the WHOLE FIRST ALBUM with costume changes and dance routines, and in that I'm dressed as Geri. She's also the most proud and vocal feminist of the group nowadays, so she wins.