Frankie Muniz feels the same way about working with Johnson and Kosove, and was pleased that both "My Dog Skip" and "Racing Stripes" are movies the entire family can go see and feel good about.
Frankie Muniz joined the rest of the "Racing Stripes" cast for the movie's very cold and rainy January 8, 2005 World Premiere. Despite the lousy weather, Muniz's spirits were high as he talked about his work on "Racing Stripes:"
INTERVIEW WITH FRANKIE MUNIZ ('Stripes'):
Did you have any photos or other visual aids to assist you when you were working on the voice of Stripes?
I started actually doing the voice two years before they even started filming the movie. I went in and just kind of read the lines and didn’t know what it was going to look like, or what was going to happen. Then after they filmed the movie, they came back with a finished product. But you still don’t have the match to the zebra because they’re going to do the animation later on. They’ll kind of like make the zebra’s head move and match it to whatever you’re going to say. So I’d see scenes but it’s so hard to watch the movie without special effects done or [without] the music. It would just be like animals just standing there. You know what I mean? They move over here… So it’s tough but you just go in and do it.
One thing with voice over work, you have to over-act like quadruple the amount that you normally would. You don’t see your face and, especially me, I do a lot of acting with my facial expressions and my hands and stuff. But they don’t see that so you have to be louder so that they can get the full effect.
Did you ever work with any of the other voice cast or were you always by yourself?
I was mostly by myself. I got to work with Dustin Hoffman once for like 30 minutes just because our characters have some nice serious scenes together. It’s hard just doing it by yourself. And definitely when you’re acting with Dustin Hoffman instead of just by yourself, he definitely brings out the best in you. When you work with good people, it helps.
When you initially read the script and it said you’d be playing a zebra, what was your first reaction?
Well, I knew the idea. I’d seen “Doctor Dolittle” and “Babe” so I knew what they were talking about with a live action movie with talking animals and stuff. I just thought it would be fun so I did it.
Did you ever consider changing your voice for this role?
Well, they always just wanted me to use my own voice. (Laughing) There are no talking animals so there’s no way to know what one would sound like.
ADDITIONAL “RACING STRIPES” INTERVIEWS:
Hayden Panettiere / M Emmet Walsh / Frederik Du Chau / Bruce Greenwood / Jeff Foxworthy / Jeff Gordon
