WW L L INTERVIEW
AN INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW ASHTON
Matthew Ashton from Upton - Vice President of Design at LEGO , co-executive producer of The LEGO ® Movie , LEGO Batman Movie and Head Judge on Channel 4 ’ s LEGO Masters show talks to Wirral Life in an exclusive interview .
After achieving your degree in Fashion Design , you originally went to LEGO to do freelance work , and the rest as they say is history . But do you still harbour a desire to work in the fashion industry again ? While I thoroughly enjoyed studying fashion and textile design , my heart is now well and truly rooted in the toy industry . Being a toy designer was something that I dreamed about as a kid , but was something that I never really considered a ‘ real ’ job , it was something Santa ’ s little helpers did , or Tom Hanks from the movie ‘ BIG !’. I had never met a ‘ real life ’ toy designer , and you hear so little about them , so becoming one just seemed like a pipe dream . I knew I wanted to do something creative . I was a bit of an all-rounder at Art College , and I kind of fell into fashion as it seemed like the best thing for me at the time . Luckily for me , some LEGO talent scouts stumbled across my work at an exhibition in London , where I had minimized my final catwalk collection and displayed them on Barbie dolls . They loved my work and plucked me from obscurity and made that little ‘ 7 year old version of me ’ dreams come true .
After the enormous success of the first LEGO movie and the LEGO Batman movie ( with a combined gross of nearly half a billion dollars ), can you tell us if you will be producing more LEGO superhero movies - LEGO Avengers , etc ? Or are you going in a different direction ? There are more LEGO Movies in the works but I can ’ t go into the specifics of what they are as that information is highly confidential . What I can tell you is that I am currently working on The LEGO Movie 2 , which is incredibly exciting but also extremely ambitious . It ’ s so nice to be able to bring Emmet and co . back to the big screen , but I ’ m afraid you guys are going to have to wait until 2019 to see what kind of adventure we are taking the gang on !
You were recently head of the judges on the very popular Channel 4 show ‘ LEGO Masters ’. Where did that idea come from ? Will there be another series ? It all stemmed back to when we made a behind-the-scenes documentary for Channel 4 called ‘ The Secret World of LEGO ’. Part of that program focused on the recruitment process that we use for finding new talent to work in the LEGO Product Design Department . We receive so many applications for our Design Positions that we have found the best way to identify who the best people are for the job , is to select who we feel are the most appropriate candidates , and then fly them to LEGO Headquarters in Billund , Denmark for a recruitment workshop . This is where they will be interviewed but also asked to complete a series of design and building challenges , so we can see up close just how skilled and talented they are in real life , how well they work in teams and if they have the right profile to fit the job . Some very clever people
at Tuesday ’ s Child ( the production company ) and Channel 4 thought this would make a perfect format for a challenge show , so they put together a pitch and presented it to the LEGO Group . We loved it and we decided to give it a go . I was then asked to go through a series of screen tests along with some other LEGO Design Employees before being cast in the very exciting but also extremely daunting role of Head Judge .
The show has been amazing to be part of . I have met so many wonderful people , and all the contestants were incredible and so inspiring ! The first season was quite short with just 4 episodes , so while it was a lot of fun , I really didn ’ t feel I got into the swing of things until the final episode and then it was all over . I really hope we get to make a second season , but I am still waiting to hear if it gets recommissioned . Fingers crossed Melvin and I will be back in the ‘ Build Room ’ with some brand new teams and exciting challenges at some point next year !
Working with Warner Bros on the movies must have been pretty exciting compared to your normal day , was it as you dreamed it might be , or quite a challenge ? Oh my gosh , when I look at my life , I can ’ t believe the journey I have been on . Just landing my dream job as a toy designer was incredible in itself ! I would never ever have imagined that one day I would also be working on a TV show and helping to make movies too … it ’ s been mind-blowing ! Of course , like all things in life , these projects have had their ups and downs . We have been incredibly lucky to work with some of the most talented directors , writers and animators that we could have wished for - that in itself has been a blessing . But of course on any project like this there are crazy deadlines , and heaps of opinions that cause bumps in the road - but at the end of the day , we pulled it off and made some movies we are incredibly proud of . So many people were sceptical about us venturing into movie-making territory , so the pressure was on from the get-go . It was huge relief when we received such positive reviews and overwhelming audience reactions . Those films mean so much to me !
A popular reaction when we announced you as the next big interview was “ Wow - he must have the world ’ s coolest office ”. Surely one of the most enjoyable positions in the world - designing toys and ‘ playing ’ with LEGO as a job . You ’ re also now managing a large team , do you still get time to play ? Yes , the pressure is on . And yes , in some respects it is a dream job , in others it feels like I have a huge responsibility on my shoulders . The LEGO brand is such a loved and recognised brand across the world , so making sure that we create products that live up to or exceed people ’ s expectations year after year can be quite a challenge . I luckily work with
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