Sony Pictures Animation invited members of the press to a special Surf’s Up event at their studios in Hollywood. Stepping into Sony’s Soundstage 18 was like taking a mini-vacation to Hawaii. The studio went all out in making the building over into a Hawaiian luau setting, complete with surfboards and tropical plants and flowers. And what luau would be complete without a penguin or two posing for pics? What? You didn’t know penguins, Hawaii and surfboards are all interconnected? Well, according to the story told in the animated Surf’s Up film (which catches a wave into theaters on June 8th), penguins actually invented the sport and excel at hanging 10…or actually that should read hanging ‘6’.
After showing footage from the documentary-style film, the voice cast sat down to discuss how they went about finding their inner penguins. Shia LaBeouf provides the voice of Cody Maverick, the up-and-coming hotshot surfer and Jeff Bridges (who explained he's bald because of his role in Iron Man) is the voice of the legendary penguin surfer, Big Z. Their characters share a special mentor/student relationship in the film so it was only appropriate the two paired up to discuss Surf's Up.
What grabbed you about Surf’s Up?
Shia LaBeouf: “You know, you never want to do the same thing twice. You want to work with amazing people, and you want it to be fun. You want to make things you’d want to watch. And this is something that’s never been done. It’s new and it’s fresh. It’s an idea and just the concept alone - this mockumentary in animation is Spinal Tap. The animation is like kick ass. Of course you want to be in it. Plus the arc of my character’s a lot of fun to play with. The big draw was Jeff, you know? I knew that that was going to happen and I want to work with actors who I admire, so that’s why I came on.”
This film was different than other animated movies in that you were given the opportunity to actually be with the other actors while recording your voice. How did that process work?
Jeff Bridges: “It was in a room about the quarter the size of the stage and they had video cameras set up. We’d all play together and they’d video us. There was lots of improvisation.”
Shia LaBeouf: “They’d set up mics at different locations. We’d move across the room and there’d be a mic set up over there and Jeff would be in the middle of something. I’d be walking from there to here and there’d be a mic set up here and we’d block it just like a play.”
Did you ever stick to the script?
Shia LaBeouf: “Sometimes.”
Why do you think people love penguins? What is their appeal?
Shia LaBeouf: “It’s the most human bird out of the bunch. They congregate in little societies and they stand upright. They have human-like features. Black and white like ying yang, I don’t know…”
Jeff Bridges: “It’s a conspiracy.”
Shia LaBeouf: “It is a conspiracy.”
Jeff Bridges; “They’re taking over. Pretty soon there will only be penguin movies.”
Are you worried that because of those other penguins movies out there, the public might not get into another penguin film?
Shia LaBeouf: “I think it helps us, if anything.”
Jeff Bridges: “Well that’s a good attitude.”
Shia LaBeouf: “Trying to be positive about it…”
Jeff Bridges: “That’s the way to be. It’s so funny. This movie was conceived about four years ago, before any of the penguin movies came out. It’s like one of those things when something’s in the air.”
Shia LaBeouf: “They made two or three Troy movies in one year and that was happenstance.”
Jeff Bridges; “It’s just in the air.”
Do you have any favorite anecdotes from filming Surf’s Up or any particularly difficult scenes to get right?
Shia LaBeouf: “There’s a scene with all three of us [LaBeouf, Bridges and Zooey Deschanel] on the beach.”
Jeff Bridges: “Yeah, it was kind of the turning point.”
Shia LaBeouf: “I’m poking him about why he left and this whole time he’s been telling me and instilling in me these things that he’s now backtracking from. He hasn’t figured his own stuff out yet, so that scene was tough only because it just didn’t feel right when we were doing it, so we just massaged it and kept going. We got it eventually.”
Jeff Bridges: “That’s one of the things about animation. It’s so expensive to animate that they’ve got to make sure they’ve got the story and the scene down. We would go in there and do a rough of the scene. They would make these rough drawings and kind of almost shoot the storyboards of the drawings. And if they weren’t satisfied, we’d come back and until they were satisfied with that, they wouldn’t commit to the final animation.”
Can you relate to your character’s desire to have a mentor/father relationship with the older penguin voiced by Jeff?
Shia LaBeouf: “Sure, yeah. And that’s big for me. In my life, my father was sort of absent and then came back, so lot of that’s in Cody. I mean you do that in life. If you have a void you try to fill it, and that’s what he’s doing.”
Is there a little ‘Dude’ in your character?
Jeff Bridges: “Well they’re both surfers, that’s something they have in common. They’re both pretty kick-back guys, enjoy life. There is probably some similarity in the two characters.”
Page 2: On Competition and Surfing
