ARTNEWSPRESS: We interview Abominable stars Tenzing Norgay Trainor & Albert Tsai, and director Jill Culton about their experience making the animated film.
Abominable is DreamWorks’ next big hit all things to its Director Jill Culton someone who isn’t a stranger to all the great animation movies having worked with Pixar and Sony Pictures. She takes helm on this film and brings this authentic and fun story to life. The movie would not be anything without its likable characters Peng and Jin. Played by Tenzing Norgay Trainor and Albert Tsai. Tenzing, most known for his time on Liv and Maddie and Jessie and Albert, who is known for his work on Fresh off the Boat and on Dr. Ken, take on their very first voice over animation movie and bring the heart to the film that really make this film great. Abominable is now available on digital and hits Blu-ray December 17.
Screen Rant: I really enjoyed the film. Congratulations. When joining this project, what were some of the things that were you super excited to experience?
Tenzing Norgay Trainor: For me I was super excited to experience the whole animation process cause I’ve never done anything like it and it was so cool. I can, I can now honestly say I don’t have a preference between live action or anime. Um, uh, and yeah, I thought I thought the story and, and getting into a movie with a Yeti was, it was all super cool and their journey to Everest across China. It was just perfect.
Albert Tsai: For me as soon as I read the script and saw the character description for paying, I sort of really fell in love with the project. And just the fact that it’s this story about a modern Chinese family and it’s set in modern day China with and how it’s super authentic and accurate. I really love that about the project and just working with the team, working with the cast and the crew.
Jill Culton: we really worked together for years, you know, and I think that’s, that’s also sometimes the difference between, um, you know, if you’re doing a live action film, you may have a shoot together for three or four months, but you know, we all become family, you know, Albert’s voice changed during this.
Screen Rant: So one of the things I really enjoyed about the film is how likable and relatable the characters are. How are, like are you with Jin and Peng?
Albert Tsai: I feel like we’re sort of similar, right? Yeah. But, uh, I feel like Peng is a little crazier than I am. A little, a little, um, I guess braver, I guess you could say. Yeah, it looks jumped into situations before thinking about them. I feel like,
Jill Culton: I think where it’s more cerebral, right? Very observant of everything. Like I, I, I think he, you know, we would go through the pages and a lot of times you have to alter a scene here and there and he would always go through and just go, Oh, you changed that scene, or Oh, you put this scene in this place now. And did that character used to say, and I’m like, how do you know this?
Screen Rant: So I mean, this production has been since they think 2013. Right? Well, what were the things that have changed, from earlier production that didn’t quite make it to the final film?
Jill Culton: You know, in the original it was just ye and Everest traveling across. So these two were added along the way. Thank goodness.I think it made she also got a little bit older and part of that was practicality. We wanted her to be independent. I wanted her to have to be able to work and make some money to save up for this trip. And you can’t really work and earn money unless you’re about 16 and you can’t really travel alone with kids like this unless there’s someone that’s 18 or older. So we aged Tenzing up in his character, Jin became 18, and it actually made for kind of a better movie because it turned these characters of Yi and Jin into kind of young adults where they are on this journey, having to take care of the crazy kids Peng and Everest had the really forced them to kind of grow up.
Screen Rant: Now for you guys, this is your first voice acting project that you’ve had. What were some difficulties that you experienced and what things actually came naturally to you?
Albert Tsai: Um, naturally, I don’t know if there’s anything that came, I feel like doing the lines, because when you’re in the booth doing the lines and doing like facial expressions and sort of like hand movements and everything sort of came naturally to me as a TV actor. So what I said a line, I would do all of that along with it. And then the camera that was in the booth would capture it for the animators so they could sort of go off of that. So I feel like that kind of came naturally to me.
Tenzing Norgay Trainor: Probably the reading the lines, delivering lines and building emotion, but having to do it all by myself or not by myself, but having to read my lines opposite Peng who was being played by Jill, it was very different.
Albert Tsai: Along with just not having anything there, like nothing was animated yet, so you couldn’t see ever if you can see the sets or anything else.
Jill Culton: We don’t record them all together. So that’s, I think that’s the difference. But one thing I could say, I think, uh, Tenzing always surprised me at how he would take a line that was semi funny and just make it hilarious. And so I would laugh. And then the whole take is rooted in the way but he has a natural ability to just have great comic timing, which really is amazing for his character.
Albert Tsai: Also, I think the physical efforts were some of the most difficult parts of recording because it was a lot of like running around because the movie is very physical. There’s a lot of action and a lot of the running around and flying and all of that was difficult to do when you’re, you have to stand in place in front of the mic. If you move away from the, like they can’t get the audio.
Tenzing Norgay Trainor: So when you’ve never experienced it, like yell, like you’re flying on a cloud, koi fish.
Jill Culton: Or even running like they’d run and someone would go, they know, can you not, we can hear your feet. Yeah. Like you can’t really do it. You run without running. Yeah.
Screen Rant: Was there a lot improv things that you guys had to do to help get you into the mood of just building this whole, world is film in your heads?
Tenzing Norgay Trainor: Yeah Joe and Todd and Suzanne were all very open to suggestions so we could, we could add live here and there and then, um, we kind of bounce ideas off each other. It was, it was, it was really cool.
Albert Tsai: As for like getting into the mood for me before every recording session, we would go up to the animators floor and they would show me some of the clips that they animated since the last time we recorded. And I feel like that’s sort of got me back in the headspace to play Ping again because each recording session was like a few months apart. Right. There’s an interesting, yeah.
Screen Rant: Now when seeing your characters come to life like the final product, what was your initial reaction when you saw yourselves? because they look very much like you.
Tenzing Norgay Trainor: I thought, wow. I don’t remember going to try not to shoot a movie. [inaudible].
Albert Tsai: I feel like we sort of saw like early concept art of our characters early on, but I was glad to see paying look turned out the way he did. Yeah. So, uh,
Jill Culton: We would bring them in and show them all the phases. So they got to see storyboards and then they’d get to see, you know, that layout phase, which is a really ugly thing. I know. Yeah, you cracked me up. I would laugh every single time. Cause the characters like slide around like it is,
Alvin: They would like, they would have like perfect animation as they’re doing their line and then all of a sudden they would just freeze, glide off.
Screen Rant: Jill, you’re no strangers to the animation world. You’ve worked on some of the biggest projects to date. what did you learn from working on those projects that you were able to take here and help bring this film to life?
Jill Culton: Well, I think, you know, good storytelling is really the foundation for every film. And I’ve worked on some films that are just a lot of fun, but a lot of you know, my training I worked for a decade at Pixar and story was really important to them to have a message. And I think DreamWorks really honors that as well. And we really wanted to bring a strong message with this too. you know, the importance of family to, to when the going gets tough, never give up. And then, you know, there’s a wonderful kind of transition he goes through from being distant from her grandma and mom, um, and reconnecting kind of with her family. And, so there’s a lot of fun and humor in this movie. There’s a lot of whimsy, but there’s also some Tufts subject matter to deal with new.
Screen Rant: And for you guys with this voice acting job, you know, on the books under your belt. Are you guys interested in maybe taking on more voice acting.
Tenzing Norgay Trainor: 100%. Yeah. Abominable 2 though.
Screen Rant: So you’re saying there’s an Abominable 2.
Tenzing Norgay Trainor: I’m not.
Abominable is now available on Digital and hits Blu-ray December 19, 2019.
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JEZZER REYES
