Don Hahn on Why Howard Ashman's Failure Was the World's Fortune & Telling His Story in the Documentary Howard

Howard Ashman is responsible for bringing some of the most beloved Disney movie musicals to life like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid and more. Known for his frequent collaborations with Alan Menken, Ashman left a rich musical legacy after he died of AIDS in 1991. Twenty-nine years later fans are now able to learn more about Ashman's life through the documentary Howard, which arrives on Disney+ on August 7. The film's producer, director and writer Don Hahn appeared on Broadway.com's #LiveatFive: Home Edition to talk about why sharing Ashman's story is so important, the most surprising thing he learned in his research and more.

Howard made its premiere at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival and was later nominated for the Best Documentary Award at the 2018 Heartland Film Festival. After working on it for years, Hahn is excited for new audiences to see the documentary. "I seriously [worked on it for] about four years, which seems incredible, but I'm used to taking that long with my background being in animation," he said to Paul Wontorek. "It started out as almost an impulse. I had lunch with Sarah [Ashman Gillespie], Howard's sister, and like halfway through my cheeseburger I just said, 'I think I have to make a documentary about Howard.' She was very polite and later she said she had no clue that I would actually do it."

In addition to being known for his work on Disney musicals, Ashman also created the cult-favorite Little Shop of Horrors with Menken. Hahn shares what it was like to be around Ashman during his biggest successes and surprising failures. "Even when Little Shop was a huge hit, he really resisted going to Broadway with it," Hahn said. "He wanted to stay in these smaller venues—that was who he was. I think he feared humiliation in some sense, by exposing himself to those larger venues. Ironically, he never really had that kind of success on Broadway until just recently with Aladdin or [The Little] Mermaid. I think Smile was really devastating for him, and that, in large part, is why he came to Los Angeles. He was frustrated with the Broadway community and the experience of it all. Lucky us, we were the beneficiaries of that huge failure."

Hahn first met Ashman in New York at the beginning of Beauty and the Beast's creation, but there was still a lot for him to learn about the lyricist as he researched the documentary. "He wrote up a screenplay for Tina Turner," Hahn said. "One of the amazing things I came across during my research was a great audio tape of Howard and Tina having lunch together. Tina's making sandwiches and Howard's asking questions about her life. I just thought, 'Well, there's a whole other movie in there.' I'm surprised a little bit at how vulnerable Howard was. To me he was an incredibly confident, smart, funny person, which he was. But talking to Alan [Menken] and reading a lot of his letters to his sister, he was like the rest of us. He didn't want to be humiliated by his work—I think we can all relate to that. We all feel uncomfortable about what we do in our work at some point in our life, and Howard really did. There's a humility and vulnerability to that that I didn't know was there."

For Hahn, he's most excited about audiences learning about the person behind the lyrics. "It's easy to think of Howard as a lyricist, which he was brilliantly so, and yet he was really a dramatist. He did it all," he said. "What I really wanted to do is bring Howard back to life for a while. I love that notion about documentaries that you can actually breathe life into a person. Let Howard tell his story and understand what went into it. To understand that this is a guy who, yes, was talented, but he did the work and paid his dues and he learned his craft."

Learn more about Ashman's life and Hahn's work on the upcoming The Hunchback of Notre Dame live-action film in the full episode below!