Flushed
Away Interviews
Sam Fell, David Bowers
(directors)
Hugh Jackman (Roddy), Jeffrey
Katzenberg, Shane Richie (Sid)
It has been said that the
original pitch for this involved pirates. Is that true?
Katzenberg: “Somebody said that
to me this morning. I have no... does anybody remember that?”
Fell: “Yeah, it was before we
even showed you. Before we even got to you, we were just kicking ideas around. In truth, this film wasn’t going to be pirates
it’s just where we started. It’s just where we started...”
Katzenberg: “You mean we had
Pirates of the Caribbean before them!”
Fell: “We did.”
Richie: “Not quite the same set in Bristol, but the
idea was there.”
What was the thing about this
pitch that grabbed you, given that its central characters are rats?
Katzenberg: “There’s a great,
long tradition in animation of mice and rats that have become quite popular. I
think the thing for this that was very compelling was the design of the
characters and the look which came from Aardman. I think Aardman is incapable
of designing a character that isn’t charming, no matter what it is. An Aardvark
would be charming if it was designed by Aardman. They have a way of just putting
a smile on our faces. So I think from the outset I thought it was a very clever
idea for a story, and to take the great look and sensibility of Aardman and use
state-of-the-art computer animation to make this movie was both a challenge and
a great opportunity for us [at DreamWorks].”
What drew Hugh and Shane to Flushed
Away?
Jackman: “Well, with most movies you get a script and
the way I recall it, I had a phone call from Jeffrey and I knew it was
DreamWorks, who I think are the best in America at doing animated movies, and
Aardman. I’d been a huge Aardman fan, in fact, I kind of felt I’d discovered
them. I used to give out videos of their shorts to people after I discovered it
on TV in the early ‘90s. Obviously, I hadn’t discovered them, they’d won
Academy Awards by this point, but it took me about three seconds to say yes. So
that was really the attraction for me.”
Richie: “What attracted me was
when they said I could have a week in LA and get out of Albert Square for a
while. I thought that was lovely. I’m a big fan... I didn’t actually know much
about Wallace & Gromit other than my kids collected some of the memorabilia
which goes for a fair price at fairs now. But I was a big fan of Creature Comforts,
which I loved very much. I’ve got the DVDs. And when they said it’s DreamWorks,
you just go: ‘wow, how can you not say yes’.”
Sam, Aardman is now almost a
British iconic title. Was Flushed Away always intended to be quite so British?
Fell: “Definitely, yeah. We
always wanted to make it a tribute to London more specifically. We just wanted
to build London under London, have this little mini version of it. That was
central to the idea from the beginning. We stuffed it full of mad little
references to British culture but we’ve made sure that it works on lots of
levels for everybody – there’s plenty there for people that don’t get it. But
we’ve got our favourite Larry Grayson tribute joke in there and lots of stuff
like that. It’s a love letter to London.”
Dave, at one point it would have
been impossible to make a film like this because of the amount of water
involved. How did you tackle that problem?
Bowers: “Well, I think what it
really is that we were very lucky to have an incredibly talented effects crew
in Glendale where we made the movie. We threw them many, many challenges – the
boat chase, we’ve got all different kinds of water in the film and they
produced a really, really amazing, quite stylised, not 100% realistic, but an
Aardman CGI version of water which what we really what we wanted.”
Shane, at what point did you
realise the volume of work that was necessary and how easy was it to come back
months later and hit the same level consistently?
Richie: “I’ve never done
something where the process takes so long. For me, it seems the best part of 18
months – at least, and that was one studio day. But I enjoyed the process. A lot
of actors say they find it quite daunting, being on your own in a studio, but I
found going into a studio on your own quite liberating after doing some of the
stuff that I’ve done in the past, being surrounded by a lot of actors. The
strange thing for me was being filmed. I was never aware that you got filmed
when you were doing animation. And of course, I was quite animated when I was
doing it because I wanted to get into the part. Then four months later you’d
come back and they’d show you some early animation of what you’d done, and
you’d go: ‘wow, that’s me! That’s me up there!’. I enjoyed seeing it all come together like
that. Once you see it in its entirety, then you go, ‘wow, that really is me!’.”
Hugh you’ve been quoted as saying
that you didn’t think you got to grips with the whole voice thing to begin
with. Is that true?
Jackman: “Well I think it just took me three or four
sessions before we really found the character. The character did change – he
originally had these hamster servants, Gilbert and Sullivan, who I really
loved. He was more like an upper-class toff, and I suppose a little snobby. I
don’t know, it just took me a little while. I remember the session, we went in
there and I said: ‘ah, I’ve got it now’. We ended up going back and re-voicing
most of the stuff we did even if there were changes. When you think about it,
it’s a character like any other. With animation on one hand, you have the
freedom to just go in and flick the switch and you’re away.
“So from the first second, you’re
working, you’re recording. I think the guys – Jeffrey [Katzenberg] as well as
Sam and Dave – were just really helpful in finding who this character was and
for me to really make it my own. Then we went back and got into it. But I
really enjoyed it. It’s fair to say it
was challenging, more challenging that I
expected. Sometimes I remember getting notes like: ‘we need to see more of this
emotion coming through’. And I was like:
‘wow, I thought I was doing that’. But I suppose you get used to film where you
have so much more available to you to convey thoughts and emotions. So I loved
it. I did find it challenging but I loved it. I remember laughing a lot.
“In terms of the look of the
character, my son is six and a half and he looked at me about halfway through
the movie and said: ‘that is you Daddy, isn’t it? That’s not animation’. I was
slightly depressed at that point, and said: ‘what do you mean, what are you
talking about?’.”
Fell: “He did become more and
more like you as we went on, actually. It was so wonderful because you were so
patient and endlessly optimistic every time you came in, you really helped us
find him too. But I think that was the real breakthrough, when we decided that
he [Roddy] was actually more like you than we originally thought. When we got
there we really found him, it was great.”
How did you find the character
and the tone for Sid?
Richie: “I just shouted a lot.
When they first approached me about doing this, I had this great vision of
stepping away from anything Cockney or being a Londoner. I thought: ‘okay, Sid,
Sidney, Sidney in Kensington, right, [in posh accent] hello my name is Sidney,
I’m a rat from Kensington...’. They said: ‘no, no, no that’s not what we want
you to do Shane’. They showed me this
picture of this dirty big fat rat with buck teeth and a quiff, and I sort of
got him straight away. I knew what they were looking for then. Then like
anything, after a while you get to see the early animation and you go: ‘oh I see
what you’re doing now’. I remember, as Hugh said, there were another two
characters that were servants and Sid did quite a bit with these two, sadly
that’s been cut out but it will be available on the DVD.”
Is there a reference in the film
to James Bond?
Jackman: “I’ve had many questions about how I found the
rat and I’d joke about doing rat workshops or mice workshops, or whatever, but
the thing is I think Roddy thinks of himself more like James Bond, particularly
in the beginning. He has this great
life, he zips around in this cool sort of car, and Barbie is his girlfriend –
or one night stand – and plays volleyball with Action Man.”
How did you enjoy taking on the
role of directors in your first feature film? And whose idea were the slugs?
Fell: “To be honest, it’s a joy
to be given such a big canvas and the amazing facilities of DreamWorks and all of
the CGI people and to be able to work with top acting talent like this. To be
honest it’s a dream come true and a complete treat.”
Bowers: “We were very lucky to
have such marvellous resources. It’s a huge job as well. It was great working
with Sam, we spent most of our time trying to make each other laugh so hopefully
that’s reflected in the movie, our bouncing jokes off each other, and mucking
about.”
Fell: “The slugs just got bigger
and bigger. It started off with one joke with one slug screaming but then we thought
‘can we push this?’ so we put a bunch more screaming slugs in and then thought
about pushing it a bit more, go on, stick another one in then,’ then ‘oh go on
then, stick some more in’. I think actually it was Nick Park who suggested: ‘why
don’t you make them sing?’. So we did
that and then we just kept doing more and more and more slug stuff. We thought
we’d get sick of it but we didn’t.”
An animation feature has a kind
of organic life. Did you have any input or notes about certain things you felt
might have worked a bit better?
Katzenberg: “This is our third collaboration with Aardman
and Peter Lord was really intimately involved in the movie from the development
of it and the look of the characters in design, and recruiting these guys to
direct the movie. Frankly, they were on a great track from the outset of this
and it’s a movie that was a pretty happy production. As always in the process
of previewing the movie, you learn because the audience talks back. I think there were things that surprised us in
how well they worked – the slugs being a perfect example of that, where the
audience really responded so well to them, so we did more. Also, just in terms
of adjusting along the way, some of the adjustments that were made to Hugh’s
character along the way came were things where we would get feedback. It was a
question of how we give the audience the best ride that we could.”
Jackman: “He’s being self
deprecating, one of the nice things people don’t know about Jeffrey…….by the
way I’m one of those actors that if you want to give me a line reading, I’m
totally all for it. A lot of actors get very offended by it but I’m thrilled to
take any idea. And I would sometimes say
to these guys that I had no idea how to say this line. I remember one occasion
particularly, we did sessions at like 8 o’clock in the morning one Sunday, and
Jeffrey was there – and there’s not many people in his position that turn up at
8 o’clock in the morning – and he chimed in with some great line readings.
There’s an actor in there, I think.”
Can you compare and contrast
Bristol with Glendale? And what did you miss most about working away?
Fell: “Well I missed the glamour
of Bristol really.. and the babes. And the weather, and the rollerblading. Strangely,
when you do animation, you tend to spend most of your time indoors with people
that are obsessed by detail. It’s the same in Bristol as it is in Glendale. So
it wasn’t quite as glamorous. When I
first heard that we were going to go over there and do this, I thought: ‘great,
I’m going to be a big-shot Hollywood director’. I had my big swimming shorts
and my Martini glass and everything all packed and I got over there. But
Glendale’s a bit more like Slough than Hollywood. So it wasn’t quite as
glamorous I suppose.”
Bowers: “Things moved more
quickly in Glendale. Working on Wallace & Gromit, in particular, was quite
nice and quite leisurely. But working in Glendale was like being strapped to
the front of a train shooting cross country at a 1,000 miles an hour.”
Fell: “I never counted on the
American work ethic, it was quite shocking.”
Bowers: “They work too hard.”
Did you stop for tea?
Fell: “Oh, I had tea shipped over
and I always had my pocket full of bags of PG Tips so I was ready to make a cup
of tea at any moment.”
Hugh, your singing voice was a
key part in the casting process, was performing the Tom Jones number a
particularly favourite moment?
Jackman: “I think he’s great. We tried a couple of
songs, didn’t we? One of them which I didn’t even know. I wouldn’t say I’m a
diehard fan. But I think he’s amazing and it was great fun to do it. The thing
I loved about the singing, these guys said: ‘just have a go’. And the thing is,
someone turns on the switch and you have a go and even though it’s Sunday
morning at 9.30 you think: ‘well, this will never be in the movie’. And alas, you go and see it and you’re like: ‘Holy crap, that was 9.30 in the
morning, I’ve got to go and redo this’. But
the beautiful thing about playing Roddy, a pet, is that he doesn’t have to be
Michael Crawford, you know.”
Do you become easy meat as a
target for animation once they know you have kids?
And when you started acting, did
you ever imagine that one day you’d be standing on top of a 25ft inflatable
toilet in Leicester Square?
Jackman: “When I started out I
was trying to make ends meet by being a really average, bad clown at kids’
parties, until I went to a six-year-old kid’s birthday party and the kid stood
up and said: ‘mummy, this clown is crap!’. I used to juggle eggs and
occasionally smash them, so I got out the eggs and said: ‘guys, do you want to
just throw eggs at me?’ just to keep the parents happy and they said ‘yeah,
cool’. So really, going down a toilet is probably a step up in many ways. I
actually had a blast doing it, it was great fun.”
Richie: “When we were at the top
he said: ‘right mate, let’s do a somersault’. I thought I couldn’t let him do
it and me not do it. I hit the bottom I thought I was going to throw up.”
Jackman: “But having kids, it’s
an absolute thrill to do a movie. I’m not being facetious at all here, when I
was in the theatre with my son, sitting next to him, the look in his face... and
he said to me afterwards: ‘this is my favourite movie ever’, and he can’t stop
talking about it. He was watching it, and kept looking at me, it was probably
one of the great moments for me, in the business. He absolutely adores the
movie. And if anyone’s got kids, you know that if your kid likes the movie you’re
seeing it a hundred times, because they
watch it over and over again. And this is one of those movies that there’s a
lot in it for adults, it’s funny.”