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‘Horton Hears a Who!" Screams Carol Burnett HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA (Hollywood Today) 3/15/08 – "It really speaks to the world around us," says Steve Carell who plays the miniscule Mayor of Who-ville in Horton Hears a Who. "No matter how different we seem on the outside, if there’s decency, caring and commitment, things can get accomplished. It’s a good, sweet, and solid message that’s rooted in kindness. That’s what I love about it." |
The film, based on the classic Dr. Seuss book, presents an perceptive elephant named Horton who hears a faint cry for help coming from a tiny speck of dust floating through the air. It contains an entire city called Who-ville, inhabited by the microscopic Whos, led by their Mayor. Although his friends think he’s lost his mind, Horton is determined to save the Whos because "a person's a person, no matter how small."
"The saying that ‘a person’s a person no matter how small,’ has particular relevance to me," says Amy Poehler who plays the Mayor’s wife and super-mom to 97 children. The Saturday Night Live actress is just five feet, two inches tall. "I’ve played many kinds of crazy in my career. A lot of up-and down characters. But Sally is very stable. She keeps her husband grounded in a very nice way. She has to because she’s the real head of their giant family. She’s her husband’s sounding board. But she’s a little worried about him; is he going crazy with his frantic running around with warnings of possible doom?"
"There’s something very liberating about screaming at the top of your lungs," says Carol Burnett, "and getting paid for it." Burnett plays the evil Kangaroo in Horton Hears a Who. ""Kangaroo is very controlling and hard-nosed. She runs the jungle with an iron fist. When playing a villain, you don’t see the character as villainous. A villain doesn’t think he or she is evil. They see the good, that they’re righteous in their feelings and thoughts. And if everybody else would just listen to and agree with them, the world will be just wonderful."
Jim Carrey plays the trustworthy elephant Horton. "Jim has a warmth and humor that’s amazing, and
which kept Horton that sweet, lovable character we know from the books," says co-director Jimmy
Hayward. "He’s a passionate, creative force and really owned the character. Jim really puts his entire face into everything he does." Lead animator Dave Torres says, "In early design stages, Horton had a smaller mouth; but when Jim came aboard, the character became very expressive." Hayward says, "Because this is a CG movie. For the first time in my career, we could push the animation to all kinds of crazy places just as Seuss pushed his work into some wildly imaginative areas."
Horton began his journey to the big screen in 2003, when executive producer Christopher Meledandri, then president of Twentieth Century Fox Animation, approached Dr. Seuss Enterprises and the author’s wife Audrey Geisel, about creating a 3-D animated film. "Ted Geisel had one of the greatest imaginations of the twentieth century," says Meledandri. "His books were a seminal part of my childhood, and I have always wanted to find a way to make a digitally animated Dr. Seuss movie."
A key moment in Seuss’ book for co-director Jimmy Hayward is Who-ville being lost in a clover field. "I thought it was incredible when Horton [in the book] ran up and screams, ‘No!’, as the speck/clover floated down in the sea of clovers." Fox’s east coast animation facility, Blue Sky, built proprietary renderer software to enable the filmmakers to depict the wind blowing across the top of the clover field, like the ripple across a Kansas wheat field. The clover, on which rests the speck Who-ville, drops into a field of about five hundred million clovers stretching as far as the eye can see. Horton examines the clovers one by one, searching for Who-ville.
Oscar-winning sound designer Randy Thom, who also did The Incredibles and Ratatouille, worked with composer John Powell, whose credits include Shrek and Happy Feet. "John and I brainstormed with the directors over a year before the movie’s release," says Thom. "We all understand the film was going to be a real playground for sound. It’s a rare treat to share sounds with a composer, and we worked to integrate the two areas as much as possible." Sound plays a significant role in the film’s plot. Horton and the Mayor can hear but not see each other.
Horton Hears a Who stars Jim Carrey, Steve Carell, Will Arnett, Isla Fisher, Amy Poehler , Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill. An all-audience comedy.