When I watch the cast sing “The Love We Found” at the end of “Christmas Carol,” it makes me cry every time because it feels as if they are singing about Jim and the group he brought together.

Some of those songs certainly apply to our group. They were written for the movie, but they happen to function for our group too. I will also say that I cannot watch “Christmas Carol” without crying. I haven’t been able to do it, and I think it’s because of the fact that I can relate to the redemption story. The genius of Dickens was that he made the ghosts—this is off-the-nose writing—in such a way that you could perceive them as ghosts that come to Scrooge, or as a creation of Scrooge in his dreams. I like to see it as the latter, with Scrooge contemplating where his behavior will lead, and ultimately creating his own redemption by suddenly realizing what he was doing in the world. The dream sequences with Scrooge and the ghosts culminate with him wiping the snow off the gravestone and finding his name there. His life has played out, he’s miserable and forgotten, and he’s added nothing to the world. His dream has made that clear to him, and he wakes up determined to change everything. God, it’s just powerful and empowering, as well as a great piece of literature.

I love how the words “chains” and “change” blend together in the “Marley & Marley” number, articulating the two options for Scrooge’s future.

Oh my god, yeah! Well that’s Paul Williams as a lyricist. He is just a brilliant, eloquent person. If you ever get the chance to see him host an event, go there because he’s so much fun to listen to.

The film is also remarkable in how it never allows the comedy to undermine the seriousness of the Dickens text.

I agree, and how it works is a mystery. It’s so hard to find that balance. I’ve read that the people at the Charles Dickens Museum in London consider “The Muppet Christmas Carol” to be the best film rendition of A Christmas Carol. The only thing that I can speculate about as to why is that the injection of humor releases your guard and allows you to cry. If there’s a poignant moment and you’re not quite feeling it, or you’re not quite ready to release your emotions, when something funny happens, it sort of opens the floodgates, and the next thing you know, you’re sobbing. Maybe the way that humor was injected into the piece strengthened it.

I was deeply moved during your “Muppet Guys Talking” interview when you observed how working with this creative group has been “a spiritual experience.”

That thought first occurred to me at Jim’s memorial at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. It was packed with five thousand people, and then there were a thousand more people outside in the rain listening to the service on speakers. The workshop had spent the whole week building hundreds and hundreds of butterflies, and they were passed out at the door where people came in, so at any given moment, there were butterflies hovering above the heads of everyone in attendance. It beautifully expressed the lightness of Jim’s spirit, and it was so moving. Every time I looked into the crowd, I was overcome. Near the end of the ceremony, all the performers were in the center of the space, and I looked out at this round window at the opposite end of the church. The window was predominantly blue, and in the emotional state of my vision, it looked like the planet. I had been working with them for 17 years, and that was the moment when I realized, “This whole thing has been a spiritual journey.”