Jason Lee spent part of his time off after the second season of his TV series My Name is Earl wrapped working on the 20th Century Fox movie Alvin and the Chipmunks. Lee gets to share the screen with Alvin, Simon and Theodore, indisputably the most famous singing – or non-singing - chipmunks in the world, in the family-friendly film.
In Alvin and the Chipmunks Lee takes on the role of Dave, an amateur songwriter who’s the chipmunks’ adoptive dad. In real life, Lee’s the father of a 4-year-old. Being a dad, however, has nothing to do with his string of appearances in family films. “It's not for my son, but it's a bonus that I have a son that's very excited about movies like this,” explained Lee. “He's quoting the Chipmunks just from the preview that we've seen a couple times. We went and saw Bee Movie and Fred Claus and all these movies that he wanted to see, and we keep seeing the preview, and now he's quoting the Chipmunks. You know, in The Incredibles he knows it's my voice, and you know, Underdog...but seeing me on the screen with the Chipmunks, I think that's just a step above.”
Lee says he approached the role of Dave like he would any other role, even though his main co-stars weren’t actually going to be there on the set with him during filming. “I was just approaching it the way I would any other character. You know, where is Dave starting and where does he get to, and how does it all work out in the middle? They're chipmunks, yes, but he treats them like kids and I just sort of approached it like that. I tried to keep him likeable.”
Starring with the singing chipmunk gang required a little extra work and a whole lot of imagination on Lee’s part. “At first it was really tedious and frustrating because I didn't have anything to work with,” admitted Lee. “I had stuffed animals if the Chipmunks were off-camera, or tape marks. It all depended on the camera angle, really. I had tape marks. But literally most of the time I had nothing, and I'd have to place my eye line always in three different places, always about this high above where they would be standing or sitting. It was kind of tough. But no complaints - I had a great time.”
Sitting still was one thing, but when Lee had to interact with moving chipmunks that really upped the ante. “Anytime I would have to move and they were moving, you know, I'm following them...any of the following or moving stuff was the hardest. But, of course, if they were just standing there, that was easy. I'd get a tape mark with A and a T and an S on it. At first I had a tendency to look at the tape and then I had to remember to look up if they were standing here.”
Lee’s amazed how real the chipmunks look in the finished film. “I was blown away. I was a little bit surprised, and just very pleased. I mean, it really looked like they were there,” said the actor. The effects people worked around whatever Lee did on the set and also were there during the shooting to let director Tim Hill know what would and wouldn’t work. “These days it's kind of second nature how well these guys can read a scene and know where the Chipmunks are going to be,” explained Lee. “They'll tell you right away, ‘"That's not going to work, maybe try this angle.’ So it was like a team constantly dissecting every scene for them, just as the actors might dissect a scene for performance. So it was really the director being with the actors, and then having to go to the effects guys and kind of bouncing back and forth between the two worlds - and then dealing with the cinematographer right in the middle. Tim Hill [is a] very low-key guy. In between takes he'd be playing his guitar. You know, he was a really mellow dude. He handled it really well because if I were directing something like that, I don't think I would in the first place.”
Alvin and the Chipmunks had a relatively short shooting schedule which meant Lee still had time off from Earl once he’d finished working on Alvin. “It was only 43 days, and then I still had two and a half months off. Because we're a half hour show, we have a five month hiatus, which is pretty exciting. I don't know how the one hour shows handle it, because they only have like a month off every year. They work 16 hours a day; we work 12 and shoot an episode in 5 days. So it's tough, because we have to squeeze six pages a day and shoot an episode in 5 days, but I have no complaints.”
If Alvin and the Chipmunks does well at the box office, Lee may find himself filling up some more free time between seasons of Earl with another Chipmunks adventure. He’s not signed on for a sequel, but confessed he wouldn’t mind doing another film with the furry singing superstars if the opportunity presents itself.
