Interview
Monsters’ Night at the Improv
Sure, the 3D animation is supercool. But imagine the technological challenges involved in animating characters voiced by guys who simply must ad-lib... Seth Rogen, Will Arnett and co-director Rob Letterman talk Monsters vs. Aliens
By Ingrid Randoja
Godzilla. Gamera. Mothra. Ghidrah. The pantheon of movie monsters.
Fifty years ago children would drop a quarter to spend a Saturday afternoon sitting in the dark watching these creatures destroy the Earth (actually Tokyo). Twenty-first century kids are too sophisticated to be frightened by guys in rubber suits pretending to be monsters, but the fun of watching them trash the world, well, that never gets old.
That’s the feeling directors Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon were after when they came up with the idea for Monsters vs. Aliens, their animated 3D pic that pits a team of monsters against alien robots sent to Earth by a mad space invader.
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“I just wanted to have total fun with those classic movies because from
our vantage point those movies are hard to take seriously now,” says
co-director Rob Letterman on the line from L.A., where he and his cast
have assembled to talk about Monsters vs. Aliens. “I mean, I look at
the Godzilla films and I find them hysterically funny, and they were
meant to scare people.”
So if you’re going to re-imagine a ’50s creature feature as a
comedy aimed at kids of all ages, you’d better call on some very funny
guys to do the heavy lifting. Letterman scored such an A-list.
There’s Seth Rogen as mindless, gelatinous blob B.O.B., Will Arnett is
the party-hearty, half-fish/half-ape Missing Link, Hugh Laurie stars as
the brainy scientist Dr. Cockroach (who sports a Cockroach’s noggin),
and let’s not forget Rainn Wilson as the evil alien Gallaxhar and
Steven Colbert as the President of United States. Sandwiched in there
is Oscar-winner Reese Witherspoon as the lone female monster,
Ginormica.
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Getting the likes of Rogen and Arnett to sign on wasn’t that difficult when the stars got a taste of who’d they’d be playing.
“I thought it was really funny. I don’t take it personally, I understand, I get it,” says Rogen on being cast as a brainless blob. “I’ve been told I don’t have a whole brain in the past, so yeah, I felt very at home.
“Actually,” continues Rogen, “I looked forward to coming in and doing B.O.B. because I felt like I had a lot of funny ideas that I could share with Rob and Conrad.”
“I wish I could say that it was a real departure for me to inhabit this moronic fish-ape, but it was painfully easy for me to appreciate who he was,” says a bemused Arnett regarding his character, The Missing Link. “He’s kind of a gun-for-hire. He’s looking for a few ladies, a good time, and when stuff starts getting serious he’s like, oh geez, I did not bargain for this. He just wants to get back to Coco Beach and start scaring some folks. I sort of liken him to an even dumber Han Solo.”
Arnett and Rogen have voiced animated characters before, with Rogen starring in Kung Fu Panda, Horton Hears a Who! and Shrek the Third, and Arnett lending his pipes to Horton, Ratatouille and Ice Age: The Meltdown. Calling on the two Canadian funnymen was a no-brainer for Letterman.
“It’s a true luxury, with these animated movies, to cast them because you tend to get everyone you ask for, which is very unique,” notes Letterman. “Seth, I kind of knew beforehand and took him out to lunch and begged for him to do this. And Will Arnett was the same. It’s just one of those things that gradually built.”
Making the movie itself was also a building process, as Letterman explains.
“We made our best effort to write the script, and had really talented writers come in and punch up jokes. We put our best foot forward, and then put the pages in front of Seth. He respectfully went through what was on the page and then put the script away and started ad-libbing like crazy — and I’ve never laughed harder than being in one of those sessions with Seth.
“I mean it was amazing,” remembers the director. “And so he would do something, then we’d go to New York, take what Seth did and put it in front of Will Arnett, who also can do the same thing, and then he would rip on that. Then we’d go back to Seth and say, ‘This is what Will said,’ and then he would rip on it. And then we’d take both those things to Hugh Laurie and then he would rip on it.
“It was like a web, a complicated web of ad-libs that we had to slowly piece together over the course of three years.”
Ultimately, Letterman’s work in the editing suite should result in a movie that entertains kids and adults alike, taking them to a world they never imagined.
“What’s great about animated films is that there really are no limits,” says Arnett. “You can go anywhere. You can do anything and you’re not hampered by the confines of the physical world. It’s great that the possibilities are endless, and also that I can wear my flip-flops to work.”
Ingrid Randoja is the deputy editor of Famous.
From left to right: Rainn Wilson,
Seth Rogen, Will Arnett
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Scary Movies
Monsters vs. Aliens stars Will Arnett, Seth Rogen and Rainn Wilson reveal their all-time favourite monsters movies
Rainn Wilson:
“My
favourites were the Godzilla movies. Any Japanese monster movies were
my absolute favourite. And there was one, Godzilla vs. the Smog
Monster, where a monster comes out of the ooze and slime of Tokyo
Harbour. But I’m also a big fan of Gamera, the turtle that spins like a
Frisbee and flies around with jets of flame coming out of his little
turtle legs.”
Seth Rogen:
“I was a big fan of the movie The Lost Boys, which actually has
Kiefer Sutherland in it, who’s also in Monsters vs. Aliens. I really
like vampire movies. I haven’t seen Twilight yet — because I’m not a
14-year-old girl.”
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Will Arnett:
“I would say that a movie that really affected me — I was probably about seven or eight at the time — was the movie The Fog. I remember what was superscary about it was that you couldn’t see the monster at all. I love when they build that tension of you not really knowing what the monster is.”
—Ingrid Randoja