Inside Olivia Rodrigo’s Concert Film: Chappell Roan, The L.A. Joke She Had to Include & Uplifting Young Women One Week Before the Election
One week after wrapping up the 2024 dates of her GUTS Tour, Olivia Rodrigo has brought the global trek to TVs around the world, as Olivia Rodrigo: GUTS World Tour, the pop superstar’s debut concert film commemorating her first arena headlining run (in support of the album of the same name), was unveiled on Netflix on Tuesday (Oct. 29).
In a conversation with Billboard the day before the special was released, Rodrigo explained that the GUTS tour — which reached four continents (South America will become the fifth next March) and grossed $186.6 million, according to Billboard Boxscore — represented a moment that she wanted to preserve in the form of a concert film.
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“I think I was just so proud of the show — it felt special,” says Rodrigo. “It was happening at the right time for me and my career, and I wanted to capture it. I’m really excited to have a kind of a time capsule — like I could show my kids, ‘Hey, when your mom was 21, this is what she did every night!’ I think that’s gonna be pretty fun.”
Olivia Rodrigo: GUTS World Tour showcases the full experience of the show, with elaborate set pieces, ample footage of Rodrigo rocking out with her band, close-ups of screaming super-fans and (of course) smash hits like “Drivers License,” “Vampire” and “Good 4 U.” Rodrigo says that she got the idea for the concert film midway through the arena run, which kicked off in February and wrapped up for the year on Oct. 22.
“I made sure that I had a lot of shows to practice with, because I was pretty nervous for the filming,” she explains. “I think we always had an intention of making a concert film. I would go to all these cities, and I love to get breakfast before I go to the show. I would meet all these people in the various states, and they’d be like, ‘Oh, I just wish I could have gotten tickets, I wasn’t able to,’ and it made me sad. And so I’m really excited that maybe people who wanted to go, who weren’t able to get a seat, can watch it now on Netflix, in the comfort of their own home.”
The special was filmed over two nights at Intuit Dome in Los Angeles in August, and Rodrigo says that she is “so happy that we shot it in my hometown.” At one point in the film, Rodrigo salutes In-N-Out Burger as a nod to the local chain, and is met with roars from the L.A. crowd. “We almost cut it out,” she says of the line in the movie. “They were like, ‘People who don’t live in California aren’t gonna get it!’ I’m like, ‘No. Keep it in. It’s part of who I am!’”
Filming in Los Angeles also allowed Rodrigo to feature Chappell Roan, who opened the first leg of the GUTS tour at the start of her own whirlwind breakthrough year. Roan returned as a surprise guest at the Aug. 20 show to perform her hit “Hot to Go!” alongside Rodrigo, the pop stars embracing and ecstatically dancing around the stage midway through the film.
“I’ve heard lots of really loud screaming in my life and the various shows that I’ve done, but I truly don’t think I’ve ever heard a scream as energetic as the scream when I announced that Chappell was coming onstage,” Rodrigo says. “It was just electric, and people were so excited. It felt like such a really special moment, and so I’m really happy that it’s in the film, for us to be able to watch forever.
“And on a more personal level,” Rodrigo continues, “Chappell was a really big part of the GUTS world tour — she opened for the first leg, and really helped me through a lot of it. I’ve known her for a while, and she’s a really wonderful friend of mine, and so I’m happy that she could be included [in the film].”
Olivia Rodrigo: GUTS World Tour is being released one week before a U.S. presidential election in which women’s rights has become a hot-button issue. Rodrigo’s work with the Fund 4 Good, the charitable component of the GUTS Tour that partnered with local organizations to champion girls’ education and support reproductive rights, will continue beyond the arena run and become a core part of her career moving forward. And while the Fund 4 Good is not an explicit part of the concert film, Rodrigo’s work uplifting young women, onstage and off, is demonstrated throughout its run time.
“I created the Fund 4 Good at the beginning of this year, tied to the tour — I wanted to do something that tried to help or make a difference, and this year felt particularly apt,” Rodrigo explains. “We raised a lot of money for abortion funds in America, through grassroots organizations who raise money to provide hotels or airfare, or can cover medical bills, for women who are unable to get an abortion because of financial situations, or because of what state that they live in.”
Ultimately, Rodrigo says, the Fund 4 Good feels like “the most important part” of the entire GUTS tour. “I really hope that people get out there and vote,” she says, “and that we won’t have to have so many abortion funds next year.”
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