The in-universe reason for the sequence, set to the Sigur Rós song “Varúð,” is that Mac, played by Rob McElhenney, wants to tell his imprisoned father that he’s gay. This is the best way he can think of to do so. There is no warning The dance number wasn’t teased ahead of time, nor was it shown anywhere in the trailer for the episode.
Midway through the dance, Mac stops dancing after his dad gets up and leaves. “He’s doing this and then he looks up for his dad and his dad is gone,” Moctezuma says. “We had the Kylie character be like, ‘No you can do this. This is not for him anymore, this is for you. This is what you need to do for yourself.'”
Although McElhenney didn’t need to do the dance all the way through for filming, Moctezuma says he suggested the actor try it — and that’s when the piece became “magic.” Moctezuma says how the effort to complete the physically-demanding choreography mirrored what Mac was going through emotionally.
Mac’s Dance From The ‘It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’ Season 13 Finale Was “Magic,” According To The Choreographer. After 13 seasons, a TV show can often get a little stale. But even as it treads familiar ground, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia has continued to evolve.
Who is Mac’s dance partner?
Mac’s dance. Here’s the inside story of how Sunny pulled off such an unexpected finale surprise, according to McElhenney, his dance partner Kylie Shea, the choreographers behind the sequence, Danny DeVito, and the episode’s director.
The Dance. From the beginning, the purpose of the dance number was to communicate Mac’s inner turmoil to his father. But it took time for McElhenney to settle on the type of dance he wanted to do. “We weren’t sure what we wanted it to feel like,” he said.
Still, McElhenney was not deterred. “Collectively, we all really just liked the metaphor of the storm that’s going on inside him and then the sun comes out,” Faulk said. “Visually, it’s just exciting to look at. It just feels dangerous and cool and makes it more of a struggle.”.
I’m not feeling very proud.” — but it ends with a five-minute, show-stopping contemporary-dance number featuring Rob McElhenney and professional ballerina Kylie Shea. Yes, that Rob McElhenney, the creator of Sunny who also plays Mac. In the finale, Frank (Danny DeVito) is trying to convince Mac to prance on the gang’s gay pride parade float, …
The only obstacle to pulling it off is, admittedly, a big one: McElhenney says he can’t dance. Or, at least, he thought he couldn’t. But that didn’t stop him, according to the finale’s director, Todd Biermann, who has been friends with McElhenney since they were children.
Although there were never any injuries, everyone recalls a freak flip that happened during rehearsals once the rain had been added to a section of the dance they called “the death spiral.”. Faulk practiced it first with McElhenney to make sure that Shea would be safe.
Who choreographed Mac’s dance in It’s Always Sunny?
It was a rare profound moment for the show, as co-choreographer Leo Moctezuma explains to Bustle just before the season finale on Wednesday, Nov. 7. Alison Faulk and Leo Moctezuma choreographed the dance and Bustle spoke to Moctezuma about the whole process.
But Mac already has a plan of how he wants to tell his father, whom he has always desperately sought the approval of. “You don’t know what’s going on inside of me,” Mac tells Frank. “The struggle to be who I am. I just want to show him, so that he can understand.”.
Moctezuma calls McElhenney an “amazing artist” and says how committed and involved the showrunner and actor was in every aspect — learning how to dance, casting his dance partner Kylie Shea (a “phenomenal, phenomenal all-around dancer,” Moctezuma says), and giving feedback on the movement.
The dance wasn’t even initially set to be the final moment of Season 13, but McElhenney “texted us and told us that they decided to make that episode the season finale. We were in awe that the producers and everybody involved got touched that much that they were like, ‘This needs to be the season finale.'”.
Danny DeVito’s Frank thinks he’s being supportive of Mac even as he continually tells him that he doesn’t “get” his sexuality. Because (ignoring the fact that the Sunny gang doesn’t have empathy for anyone) Frank, as a straight man, doesn’t think he could — or should — ever comprehend what Mac is going through.