Gerard Butler, Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Craig Ferguson on 'How to Train Your Dragon'

From the press conference:

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3767-Celebrity-QA-Examiner~y2010m3d26-Gerard-Butler-Jay-Baruchel-America-Ferrera-Craig-Ferguson-on-How-to-Train-Your-Dragon


Gerard Butler, Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Craig Ferguson on 'How to Train Your Dragon'

March 26, 8:45 PM Celebrity Q&A Examiner Carla HayPrevious

"How to Train Your Dragon" voice actors at the movie's Los Angeles premiere. Pictured from left to right: Jonah Hill, Craig Ferguson, Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, T.J. Miller and America Ferrera.How can you tell that a major movie studio expects a film to do big business? When that film is released in 3-D. "How to Train Your Dragon" is the DreamWorks Animation’s first 3-D movie of 2010. Based on the Cressida Cowell novel of the same title, "How to Train Your Dragon" is set in the ancient world of Vikings and their practice of fighting, capturing and taming dragons, which are creatures that the Vikings see as a threat to humanity.

A misfit Viking teenager named Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel) tries but fails to get his father’s approval by being a more macho dragon fighter. When Hiccup accidentally injures the tail of a dragon that he names Toothless, Hiccup mends the tail and befriends the dragon, but he must keep the friendship a secret from Viking society.

The movie’s voice actors also include Gerard Butler as Hiccup’s father, Stoick the Vast; America Ferrera as Astrid, Hiccup’s tombyish love interest; and Craig Ferguson as village blacksmith/dragon-training instructor Gobber. Butler, Ferrera, Barchuel and Ferguson recently sat down to discuss "How to Train Your Dragon" at a Los Angeles press conference for the movie. The actors joked around a lot during the interview, so many of their answers should not be taken seriously.


Did you ever get a chance record any of your voices together?

Baruchel: We had a couple of times where we all got to work together, each of us — different permutations of the four of us here. It’s always more fun when you get to do it with others, as opposed to just in isolation.

Ferguson: Absolutely! And sometimes together [romantically]… Oh, we’re not like that!

Butler: [He laughs.] What? Sometimes together …

Ferguson: Yeah, why not?

Butler: This is the wrong movie we’re doing.



Ferguson: I know. I forgot. Yeah, we worked together. It was nice.

Butler: We did. I think it was the three of us [Craig Ferguson, Jay Baruchel and I] …

Ferguson: We were in the [San Fernando] Valley [in California].

Baruchel: You guys had some alone time. I infringed.

Butler: And then it was the three of us in New York.


How much time did it take for you to do "How to Train Your Dragon"?

Barcuhel: Three years for me.

Butler: Three years for me.

Ferguson: Twenty-five minutes.

What did you think when you saw the finished movie?

Butler: For me, it was one of the most satisfying experiences I ever had. I remember Craig calling me when he’d just seen a bit of it, and to hear somebody so genuinely excited, he was screaming, "I’ve just seen some of the movie! It’s better than ‘The Lord of the Rings’! This is incredible! It’s never been done before! I took my kid! We were so excited!"

And to see the whole thing finished in 3-D, I thought everybody excelled themselves. Craig is outstanding, Jay is just brilliant. It’s spectacular how the 3-D animation was. There’s only been a couple of times where I’ve stood and been surrounded by my friends who was all just as excited as I was: This [movie "How to Train Your Dragon"], "300." That’s about it.



Craig, you were recently making of fun of Johnny Depp for his accent in "Alice in Wonderland." Can you explain why your Viking character has a Scottish accent? And do you think Johnny Depp will retaliate against you for mocking him?

Ferguson: [He says jokingly] I don’t understand your question. The accent really throws me. I’m not worried about Johnny Depp worrying about me. I don’t think Johnny Depp even knows I’m alive! As far as the Scottish Viking, there were some, weren’t there?

Baruchel: Indeed!

Ferguson: There were Scottish Vikings.

Baruchel: And Irish as well

Ferguson: And Irish, too!


Butler: [He says jokingly] Up in the north of Scotland, a lot of the villages are completely Viking names. A lot of Vikings came down and settled in Scotland and in Ireland. And a lot of them didn’t, but they took plenty of us with them — mostly the chicks.

Ferguson: Probably.

Butler: Iceland is 50 percent Celtic blood, from the females that they stole from us, which is why our country has only got dogs left. It was a joke! I’ll never be let back in Scotland again!

Ferguson: The views expressed by Gerry Butler are in no way reflections of the CBS Corporation or any of their affiliations …


Craig, did your experience with puppeteering help you in doing an animated film?

Ferguson: No. The work that the animators and the people who really make this movie do is really spectacular. That’s why the rest of us are so excited to be a part of it. You look at it and think, "I could never do anything that cool!" This is kind of a departure for me, this whole movie. Usually, I’m in crap! So when I’m in something that’s good, it’s kind of off my brand. It’s really a spectacular thing.

And the people that make this kind stuff; it’s DreamWorks. It’s not the first time at the dance. They’ve done this before, and I think they’ve done an incredible job here. But I didn’t make this movie. I did a voice in this movie. Just to be part of something this cool is very exciting.

How did you feel seeing a likeness of yourself as an animated character?

Baruchel: Well, we’re all actors, so we’re pretty narcissistic, so I assume we see ourselves in everything. For me, I totally did. It’s a real symbiotic process, because they record you and videotape you and animate accordingly, but then they bring you these sequences they’ve put together, and then you have to tailor your acting to the sequences, back and forth for three years. And then at the end of it, you have kind of a cartoon version of you, which is pretty thrilling.

Ferguson: It’s very unusual for actors to work in this environment, because it’s almost like they care what you think — which is unusual, isn’t it?

Baruchel: [He laughs.] It’s not common.


Butler: When I first went into the room, and they had the different cameras — lipstick cameras and cameras staring at you — I thought, "Why are you doing this?" Because I had a sheet of paper in front of me and I’m reading from it. And I don’t want to have to feel pressure to be animated in any way.

And then closer to the film, Kristof [Serrand], who was my particular animator, cut together a DVD of me in the movie and those particular sequences and me in the studio — and sometimes, it was the exact same performance of me spreading my arms and looking up when I’m saying, "Odin! It was rough!,’ and then looking down. It was an exact match. And I think it was them saying, "Trust me, what you do is of value."

And there are parts in that movie, where as an actor I would call "complete over-acting" that I see in the movie that works better in the cartoon, but in real life … it’s awful to watch. But I seem to have gotten away with a lot of over-acting in this.


A theme in this movie is people, especially family members, accepting you for who you are instead of who they want you to be. Could any of you relate to that, considering that being an actor is not an easy profession to pursue?

Baruchel: For me, the movie is an analogy for any kind of artsy kid in high school, any kid who isn’t playing football or hockey or whatever. The point of the movie to me was all the things that you’re taught when you’re young that your failings and inadequacies are ultimately what set you apart and makes you kind of special.

And that’s what Hiccup is, right? To me, the chicks are more alpha male than he is, and he’s kind of in the back designing his own weapons, but by the end of it, he’s the one that ends up changing everything for them. So that’s what it is. It’s about finding your place in time.


America, did you see any of yourself in Astrid?

I actually don’t see any of myself in Astrid. She looks very different form me, which was fun for me, because I didn’t feel the pressure to really create the character. It’s one of the easiest and most fun jobs I’ve ever had, because I could show up and watch the finished product and think, "They created this character." I provided the voice. I gave them choices, options, whatever, and they took it and made it so much better than what I could’ve ever imagined this character to be.

Every now and then, my eyebrows did something that I could see my eyebrows do. I think there was some inspiration, on that front, of the cameras that they had on me while I was doing the voices, but it was really fun for me to sit there and think that I got to be a part of creating this character who is a character on her own. She really isn’t me or even a version of me. She’s her own thing.

What would you do if you had a dragon like Toothless in real life?

Baruchel: Wow, I don’t know. Go to the store and buy Coca-Cola. I don’t do much. Slim pickings in my life. I don’t aim so high, so the dragon would be lost on me, I think.

Butler: This boy loves his Coca-Cola. I identify, because I love Coca-Cola. You spot it, you got it! The flying sequences in this movie are so breathtaking. I heard about these kids watching "Avatar" who went into a depression because they couldn’t really live in that world.

And whenever I watched this movie ["How to Train Your Dragon"], I thought, "That’s where I want to be. I want to be up in that sky. I want to be flying through the clouds and be living in that environment." So I think if I had a dragon, I would spend most of my time up in the air all over the place and taking in this beautiful planet.




Going back to an earlier question, how did your family react when you told them you wanted to be an actor?

Butler: "As long as you’re not a drunk, we don’t give as sh*t what you are!" … For me, it was an interesting thing, because my family always knew that I wanted to be a lawyer.

Baruchel: I‘ve always known you wanted to be a lawyer.

Ferguson: Screw you guys! I’m out of here! I’m going to law school! Give me writ and a court of appeals right now!

Butler: In actual fact, I wanted to be an actor, but I was a lawyer, and I was a week away from qualifying and was fired. And that’s the day I made an announcement: "Hey, for seven years, you thought I was going to be a lawyer. Well, I’m not. I’ve just lost my job, and I’m packing my bags and moving to London tomorrow to be an actor."

And even though I made that joke about my parents saying, "As long as you’re not a drunk, I don’t care what you are," I actually got a letter that was similar to that, where my mom was like … I knew my mother was devastated by this news [that I wanted to be an actor], but she wrote me a letter saying, "You know what? At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what you do, just as long as you’re happy, then I’ll be happy." It was one of the most beautiful things that ever went on between me and my mother.



Gerard, how did you feel about playing a father to a teenager in "How to Train Your Dragon"? Were you comfortable with that?

Ferguson: He’s not a real Viking either. Did you know that? I know him.

Butler: If truth be told, when I took this role, it was a different director and a different story and my kid was much younger. And then that all changed. It was always Jay playing [my character’s son], but …

Baruchel: I was younger. I even had to do a little-kid voice …

Butler: I was comfortable with [my role as a father of a teenager], because you know what? It’s my voice. Actually, the more different, the more exciting. If they’d asked me to be somebody’s grandfather, that would’ve been all the more space for me to try something different … It was fine. I want to be a lawyer.

Did you read the "How to Train Your Dragon" book before you were cast in the movie?

Ferguson: I know the book because I have a son who’s 8 1/2 years old, so I was familiar with the book, because I read them to him and now he reads them on his own … Also, ["How to Train Your Dragon" author] Cressida [Cowell] had talked about Scotland a little bit, and I’ve been there. A lot of books are different than movies. You should probably write that down.

Butler: The voice of the philosopher.

Ferguson: Yeah, only write what you know.


Would any of you consider doing a live-action, family-oriented movie?

Ferrera: I was actually bummed that this ["How to Train Your Dragon"] wasn’t live-action. I’d be in my sound booth, and ["How to Train Your Drain" directors] Dean [DeBlois] and Chris [Sanders] would be explaining the scenes: "The dragon goes up and then you go down and then you see the island …" And I’m like, "Can’t we just really do this [in a live-action film]?" Maybe we can convince them to do this as a live-action movie.

Baruchel: That would take a while.

America, do you feel that playing a Viking in this animated film is getting away from Latino stereotypes that you’ve probably encountered?

Ferrera: Well, yeah. The obvious is, in animation, they make you look like whatever they want you to look like. That’s what was really cool. They could choose the voice that they wanted, and it wasn’t dependent on who looked the part, which was really nice for me, because I got the job. There were actually female Vikings, which I thought was super-cool that they put a female character into the story, because it could’ve easily just been an all-men, male-dominated Viking movie.


America, now that you’re leaving "Ugly Betty," do you worry about being stereotyped?

Baruchel: We all have those concerns! Stereotyping is part and parcel of every actor.

Ferrera: I think, by nature, any character I take at all [in a live-action project] will have to assume a Latina background, because that’s what I am, but I hope it doesn’t limit the stories that I can be a part of telling. I don’t how to answer that question.

Baruchel: [He says jokingly] I struggle with the Latina typecasting all the time.

Ferguson: Me too. It comes at me every time!

Butler: For me, it’s Nigerian.