Despicable Me cast interviews: Julie Andrews and Steve Carell--The Hills are alive with the sound of music! (That's what she said)
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Despicable Me opens tonight!
I hope that you take your kids and have a blast, because it is truly such a cute film! (To read my review, click here. For the first part of cast interviews, click here.)
I had such a good time during the entire junket. It was not hard to talk to the vocal talent, they were all so easy going and helpful and eager to answer any question that was asked of them. The rest of us had some butterflies in our stomachs at the thought of meeting some of our favorite celebrities.
I was so, so, so, so, SO excited to meet Julie Andrews. (Seriously? I have WORSHIPED her my whole freaking life.)And then finally...the moment was there and Steve Carell walked into the room.
If there were two words to describe Steve Carell?
NICE GUY.
He is not as 'laugh out loud' funny as I thought he was going to be, but he was soooo....NICE. It practically oozed out of every single pore. You just know you are talking to one of the more decent humans that walk the earth.
They said that they wanted someone to voice Gru that could have good and kindness shine through in their voice and did they pick a WINNER with Steve Carell. He
It was great but why didn't you play a minion. Man...I was THAT CLOSE to being cool if only I'd been a minion!"
I asked him how being a father had influenced him in his role as Gru and he said that that was what interested him about the script in the first place.
"Becoming a parent is the point of the story. When you become a parent someone has their life structured the way they want it to be or the way they THINK they want it to be. Then you introduce kids and EVERYTHING changes. It changes everything about how you feel about yourself and your work and life. It's so overwhelming and to watch a super villain go through that I thought was very funny. And I got all welled up at the end because that character is going through what a parent goes through. Finding the power of that connection with your kids is overwhelming and to me, there is nothing else like it."
(AWWWEEEE!!!!)
And then...JULIE ANDREWS GLIDED INTO THE ROOM.
She is just a lovely, elegant and compassionate lady and you can tell she is one fantastic mother. I utterly loved that about her. She spoke a lot about her 5 children and how she read and read to them and that if they were ok then she was ok but if they were not ok in "any way shape or form" she was not ok, either.
So many of us relate to that. You're only as happy as your unhappiest child.
Her being such a loving, compassionate and good mother made her voicing the role of Gru's monstrous mother seem like an even more unusual choice
Someone asked her if it was hard to think about playing a diabolical mother?
"At first it was. I thought, 'Oh, God I don't want to disappoint any sweet, young children that come to see the film thinking they were going to be seeing Mary Poppins.' I finally came to the conclusion that this lady has no idea that she's as appalling as she is. She is so totally self-involved that she has no idea that she is a terrible mother. And then it was ok and it became great fun."
There was a good deal of warm laughter during the interview and we laughed especially hard when she described Skyping with her daughter and fluffing her hair and applying perfume because it "makes one feel more presentable, doesn't it?"
(I SO LOVE HER.)
My favorite part of her interview was when I told her I had this day dream that she waved to us all like in The Princess Diaries only substituting 'blogger people' for 'trolley people' and she said, "GOODBYE, BLOGGER PEOPLE"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I could have died happy right then.
Sigh....
She is exactly, EXACTLY how you think she is going to be.
Practically perfect in every way.
Labels: despicable me, jason segel, julie andrews, miranda cosgrove, steve carell, universal studios
I am jealous. And I love you. ;-)