The Last Five Years first made its Off-Broadway debut in 2002 - it ran at the Minetta Lane Theatre for two months - and while critics adored it, perhaps not many expected it to become a bona fide cult classic. The original cast recording featuring Norbert Leo Butz and Sherie Rene Scott was released by Sh-K-Boom Records the same year and gained such popularity, that now it’s almost impossible to attend an audition without someone performing “Shiksa Goddess” or “Goodbye Until Tomorrow”. Perhaps it was the intimate nature of the show - which chronicles the disintegration of a relationship seen through its best and worst moments - perhaps it was Jason Robert Brown’s sweepingly romantic score, perhaps it was the show capturing the uncertainty of living in a post 9/11 world where every moment needed to count...but the show lived through the album, making people all over the world fall in love with it.

All throughout, producer Kurt Deutsch has been an essential player in maintaining the flame of The Last Five Years alive, he and his wife, Scott, created the label that first released the cast recording, and eventually Deutsch produced the film version starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan as doomed lovers Cathy and Jamie. Directed by Richard LaGravenese the film is a beautifully realized musical that doesn’t shy away from touching on the pain, intense feelings and exhilaration of the show. It’s a little movie that wears its heart on its sleeve, and as such, often achieves moments of subtle sublimity. We had the opportunity to talk to Deutsch who was kind enough to tell us about the process of making the film, his personal takes on the story and why movie musicals matter more than ever.

I saw the movie with an audience and it was really funny, because there was a couple sitting in front of me, and when the movie started they were holding hands, but by the time the movie ended they were sitting so far away from each other.

Oh my god! That’s hysterical. Were they there because they knew the story?

I guess? But I feel the same way listening to the album, it’s like a rollercoaster emotionally. I feel like more than any other recent musical, The Last Five Years feels like it was made exclusively for musical theatre fans.

We love the show very, very much, so we wanted to stay true to it. Richard LaGravenese fell in love with the album, never saw the show, and I supported him completely because I really believe that it’s all there in the songs. We wanted to stay as pure as we could to the material, and do it in an independent way without anyone giving us notes and telling us how to do it. It wasn’t necessarily for theatre people, I mean how many people go to theatre? We wanted the story to resonate, so hopefully people who are theatre lovers will like what we’ve done, but ideally we want for an universal audience to respond to it too. But yes, first and foremost is for all of us theater geeks, I mean the people who have fallen in love with the album, or the show, it’s for us. We all love the show and the album, so we wanted our crowd to fall in love with it first, and then we got fortunate to have Anna Kendrick who spreads that crowd out because of her fame right now.

She’s so great in the movie too. When she sings “these are the people who cast Russell Crowe in a musical”, people in the theater cheered!

Isn’t that hysterical? She came up with that line.

As a producer do you get involved in all these tiny creative decisions, like the countless homages to other musicals spread throughout the film?

My input was supporting Richard and his vision. He literally had everything planned in the screenplay, he spent years and years fantasizing, from listening to the record and doing exercises of listening to the album. I always felt like it would be a great movie, after seeing it so many times and producing the original album, but when Richard and I met and connected it was obvious this was his baby.

You’ve lived with this piece for more than a decade, from producing all three available albums, to the movie. One of the greatest things about the piece is that it grows with you and depending on where you are at in your life you’re either a Jamie or a Cathy. Which one are you?

I understand both sides, I identify with both of them, I see different facets of myself in both of them. I was an actor for a really long time, so I get the lack of confidence and feeling like a failure sometimes or being in the shadow of somebody else. I think we’ve all felt like Cathy, we’ve been in relationships with people who are Cathys too. I feel like Jamie sometimes when you’re not necessarily on the same career path as your partner. I don’t think either or there are bad, they go from 23 to 28 in the show, and you’re dealing with a lot of stuff when you’re that age. I remember when I was that young, a long time ago, being in a relationship is hard, when you’re trying to juggle all of these feelings and money, fame, work.

It’s always a joy to talk about this piece with friends, because they always find their perspectives about the characters changing…

Yes I think that as you grow, it’s really about you identifying where you are in your life. You can think Jamie is terrible because a guy or girl just dumped you, or that Cathy is whiny because you’re in that place in your life. An older person sees the musical and goes “oh, those kids” and a sixteen year old would be like “I’m never going to get married!”

The Last Five Years was the first cast album you produced and the soundtrack is the third time you’ve produced this piece. Are you more protective of it than anything else in your catalogue?

I wouldn’t say I’m more protective of it, but the film has always been a passion project for me, and the original cast album, being the first, it’s very close to my heart. Being able to see the trajectory has been great, especially because the original show closed so fast, so people fell in love with the show because of that album. People were able to imagine Cathy and Jamie without seeing the show. The revival was very special for Jason because he directed it, and the soundtrack is special because of the film, because now people will gravitate towards the new orchestrations and the new performances. But I mean, the original cast album...you can have as many revivals as you want but there is always just one original, which is why I love doing these records, because there is only one original cast recording.

I was surprised to discover that Anna and Jeremy were doing their vocals live!

The majority, I would say 75% to 80% were done live, there were things we couldn’t do live because of the environment. We couldn’t do “Moving Too Fast” or “I Can do Better than That” live because we were in cars, boats, so a lot of that was done to lipsync.

That’s quite ambitious in terms of logistics for a first time movie producer.

I had some great producing partners. It’s interesting because I started as an actor so I’ve done tons of bad television, but doing hour longs on TV is a lot like making an independent film, and I’ve spent the last 15 years making and producing music, so those two experiences helped me make this.

Also, congratulations on the Grammy for Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. You’ve become a historian of sorts by producing all these cast recordings and now preserving The Last Five Years as a movie. Sometimes people forget that there is a world beyond New York City where if it wasn’t for cast recordings and movies, we wouldn’t know about musical theatre. Is this part of your mission?

I’m from St. Louis, Missouri, my mom took me to The Muny Theater so my only relation to Broadway were the albums, I was one of those kids who dreamed of being on Broadway from listening to the records. I think we’re in a rebirth of movie musicals, with YouTube and Amazon and Netflix, and how video is taking over, I think we’re in a whole new world of movie musicals and people are not looking down at it anymore. They’re seeing it as another genre that’s very viable, because you have films and soundtracks, the biggest song last year was “Let It Go” and that’s from a musical. Also, some musicals aren’t meant to be filmed, they’re meant to stay on the stage, but this one was something that needed to be a movie, it’s like Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage it’s an intimate story told through song and it lent itself to be opened up, not in a grand way, but in the perspective of seeing what the other character is going through.

I do think it was a gorgeous movie to watch and timely as well, especially now that people are talking about Beyoncé’s visual album, movie musicals too are visual albums.

That’s the way I always imagined it, because it is track by track, but it holds together, so yes, it is a really visual album. I’m glad you said that because you could perfectly sell the movie on iTunes just like Beyoncé did because it’s a concept album.

And now people can listen/watch it over and over again.

I’ve seen people on Twitter going “it’s over so I’m starting it over again”, and that’s exactly what musicals should be. Richard LaGravanese says that musical lovers are like the comic books people at Comic-Con, we love our musicals and one of the biggest compliments I’m getting are from theatre people who got what we were doing and saw that we were being faithful to the piece.

What musical would you like to turn into a movie next?

Oh god, I can’t even begin...I have lots of dreams, but wishes don’t come true if you tell them out loud. For now I want to bask in this and then we’ll see what happens next…

The Last Five Years is now in select theaters and available on Demand, Amazon and iTunes.