In this interview, Pantoliano talks about doing voice work, what's happening with "Daredevil 2," and whether he believes there should be a sequel to "The Goonies."
INTERVIEW WITH JOE PANTOLIANO (Goose the Pelican):
What was your reaction to receiving a script and discovering they want you to play a pelican?
A pelican named Goose. It’s the same thing that happened to me when I got the script for “Memento.” I read it and I got killed off on page one and I fired my agent. He said, “Schmuck, keep reading.”
I’ve been very successful in doing these voices in movies, I enjoy doing them. I did “Olive, the Other Reindeer” with Drew Barrymore and I did “Cats and Dogs.” For me, this is a family affair. My children came to some of the sessions because we live in the East. I did some sessions with [director Frederik Du Chau in LA] and then some sessions on a soundstage in Queens. My children came and watched.
It takes so long, this process to do these shows. I’ve been working on it almost two years now… When you go there, they lay down the first bit of stuff. And not having the advantage of working with the other actors, and you’re working with another actor reading your off-camera line. You do the scenes and after you do the scenes they say, “Okay, let’s just say the line over again. Do it again, do it again.” “That’s good for me,” says Frederik, the director, and we move on to the next. And then they go off, and they run off to South Africa for 90 days and shot the movie with friends of mine, a lot of these people I’ve worked with in the past - Wendie Malick and Bruce Greenwood - and it evolves. It comes to life. It’s something that my kids can celebrate with me. And let’s face it, 80% of the work I do my kids can’t see.
Did they show you a drawing of what the pelican was going to look like?
Yeah, they showed me drawings of some of the animals. The story is very Capra-est on paper. You fall off a truck, you lose your family, there’s a newfound family, it’s a circus family, and it’s about tolerance. It’s about fitting in. It’s about being an outcast, thinking you’re a horse and why can’t I play with the other horses? That was really touching to me, and how this band of have-nots, low on the food chain, that we kind of emulate vicariously, living through the zebra, that he can fulfill his dreams and race. We just wanted him to race, who would think that he would win? And this pelican, who has got to create an identity because he’s so insecure about his own life, he makes up the fact that he’s a gangster. He’d rather have people fear him than love him because he’s never been loved, so he creates this illusion that he’s a tough bird. So talking to Fredrik about stuff like that, for me – 12-15 years of acting school, and I really am being a bird. Smell the orange… It’s like you don’t put on any clothes. You don’t put on any make-up. You just go in this room and you use one part of you, the emotional soul of the instrument, and then all these other artists run with it.
Did your work on “The Sopranos” help you in this role?
No, it was living in the projects that helped me with this role.
Did the finished film turn out the way you envisioned it while you were doing the voice work?
What happens is, you start out with imagination. Imagination takes over and it’s explained to you by the vision of the director. And then you take a leap of faith because it’s all ‘once upon a time’ and you’re this and you’re that. The way you feel about the way Goose feels in this specific scene is this, so you act it out with the actor that’s reading the other parts and then you leave. And they use that as a blueprint. Then as they start getting the animals to do behaviors - and Fredrik can probably answer this better, I wasn’t there so I’m just (saying) how it was explained to me - you go back and now you add to the performance. You change the performance based on what you’re seeing on playback. Or they say, “Listen, the bird did something [funny].” This happened a couple of times, where the bird did something really funny, so we want to add some dialogue to match the behavior. I can’t imagine being there for 90 days waiting for an animal to do something.
The pelican kept doing cute stuff and they kept calling you back?
Yeah, it’s like being on probation. It’s time to go see the probation officer.
Page 2: Joe Pantoliano on Voice Work, "Daredevil 2," and a "Goonies" Sequel
