So you know how I went to Walt Disney World for the Zootopia movie press junket? Disney’s Zootopia is coming out this weekend and trust me – you have to see it! We sat down with Jason Bateman for a quick interview about his character, the sly fox Nick Wilde. He loves the movie, loves his character and was happy to be involved with the film!
photo: Mom Start
The large metropolitan city of Zootopia is home to many animals, it’s a city of opportunity. As Judy Hopps, a young police cadet sets out to her new home in Zootopia, she meets the sly Nick Wilde, a fox that she must work with to solve a mysterious criminal case. While I can’t spoil too much about his character and what happens in the movie, I will tell you that I’ve already seen the movie and it is SO GOOD.
Bateman has historically played controversial characters in live action movies, and with a Disney animated film, things are a little different! When you’re filming a live action movie, there are facial expressions, gestures and other body language that can be comedic and make a character come to life. Bateman says that it’s so much different to voice an animated character, because it’s literally only his voice that he can control. He says that the animators are completely in charge of how it ends up looking on screen, they do have video cameras recording Bateman and the others to capture the body language they use.
“It’s kind of like making a cocktail to make somebody laugh with something. You don’t realize how many little components there are. When you tell a joke or a story there’s inflection and then there’s facial gestures and it’s a pretty strange thing to just hope that the rest of the recipe gets cooked in the right way.”
photo: Disney
Also, now that he’s a dad, Bateman mentioned that he is thrilled that his kids, ages 9 and 4, can finally see one of his films – Zootopia is perfect for the entire family! He plans to use the movie as a tool to get the conversation going about racism, bullying, discrimination, fear mongering, and other differences. It provides an easy way to approach those subjects, and I highly recommend that you do the same for your own children. Zootopia is a great way to introduce these concepts that are present in the real world, but in a fun lighthearted way.
With the setting of the movie being in the big city of Zootopia, hustling and bustling with all of the wild and crazy stuff we actually see in the real world, it reminds us that as our kids grow up and get out in the world, it’s ok to let go! Here’s a quote from Jason Bateman himself regarding his older daughter that I loved, and that I think parents can all learn from:
“I’m really trying to be okay with the fact that I can’t keep my daughter in a bubble and I can’t control her, her whole life. So, the only kind of peace that I can give myself is that I’m confident that she knows how to make good decisions, so that’s my job. I will keep working hard to build her as good a car as possible so she can drive through it okay.”
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ohh sounds like a movie I would love to watch!