I attended a screening at the Egyptian Theatre in LA last night for Fantastic Mr. Fox. Great movie! One of the best animation features I’ve seen with a great story about taking risks, believing in yourself and connection. (the plot is a sly fox going up against 3 angry farmers) And of course, it’s always good to have so many voices hired in addition to the celebrities.

After the movie, director Wes Anderson and co-writer Noah Baumbach came out for the Q&A. The first question to Anderson was how he came to do this project. He said with a chuckle, “I love puppets with fur.” Then he went on to talk about his love of the Roald Dahl book. There were a few questions about the voice talent ( I tried to ask one) mainly about Bill Murray and would Anderson be directing Ghost Busters IV, a humorous reference to the fact that Anderson was supposedly on the “rejected list” for Spiderman IV.

Longtime co-writers, Anderson and Baumbach talked about their writing process. “Most of our projects come from just hanging out together.” (a good reason to hang out with friends!). Then, a 10 year old stood up raving about the movie asking, “How did you make the movie so funny?” They talked about the challenge of trying to balance humor with the serious moments, not wanting to ruin the funny moments with serious dialogue and the reverse.

When asked about the casting, Wes did say that he likes to work with the same actors over and over but he also likes to bring in new talent. Wonder if that means non-celebrity voice talent?

He talked about the recording process and that they recorded a lot of it on a Farm outside. A lot of the dialogue was a collaborative process with the actors. Wes often records all the parts himself first before bringing in the actors.

On directing the actors in an animation feature Anderson says, “It’s freeing because they have just the paper in hand. There’s no lighting, costumes, makeup, they can just go.”

I kept thinking throughout, how much fun it would be to perform in such a wonderful project like Fantastic Mr. Fox. Here’s to many more of these wonderful projects and opportunities for non-celebrity voice talent!

-Tracy Pattin