Dr. Seuss told rhyming stories for kids,
So Hollywood started making their bids.
The Grinch made millions with Jim Carrey‘s green suit
But audiences gave The Cat in the Hat the boot.
The latest Seuss film is Horton Hears a Who,
Animating his drawings, using his words, too.
Whoville exists in a world on a speck.
When an elephant finds it, he turns things to heck.
Starring Carrey again and Steve Carell as lead voices,
They both gave an interview to discuss their choices.
With many anecdotes for comedy nerds,
These are our rhymes, but the actors’ own words.
1) Though he’s turned down animated films in the past, the Horton team hooked Carrey by talking real fast.
“Well, what they do is, they come to your house and they say, ‘This is going to be the simplest process in the world,'” recalled Carrey. “They lie to you, completely lie to you. Anybody who they’re doing that to in the future might want to take note. It is hard work. I mean, it’s not as simple as they make it sound. It is a half a day here and there. Whenever you get a free moment, you’re going in to do it. The fact is, they come to you and they really don’t have a script. They have an overall idea of where they want to go, but they go, ‘Here’s eight pages. What do you think we should do with it?’ And you sit in a room and you jam. You come up with ideas and you come up with lines. It’s an amazing process because you think, ‘How is this ever going to get to the end and make sense?”
2) For kids the wild images will astound, but their parents will find the story profound.
“This is a book that I think resonates with kids,” said Carell. “They don’t understand the metaphors and the sort of richness to it, but at the same time, it resonates. There’s something very specific about the theme that I think even a little kid can understand. That is that everyone deserves an equal footing in life, and I think that’s just a very basic tenet of being a creature of the world.”[PAGEBREAK]
3) Kids have seen hobbits, wizards and superheroes too, but there’s still nothing quite like a Who.
“As far as kids go, the thing that attracts them to this is not the deeper concepts involved,” said Carrey. “It’s really just the fact that Seuss’s creativity was so incredible. He was such an original and if you give a kid a character that he’s never seen before, in a world he’s never seen before, they’re able to completely lose themselves in an imaginary space. Yet at the same time, they’re getting all those wonderful lessons.”
4) Kindergartners in Pennsylvania wondered how to play a Who, and Steve Carell is here to tell you.
“Have the kids in your class imagine a world where nothing goes wrong, ever,” he said. “That everything is always happy, everyone always gets along, and it’s always good. The sun is always shining. Then have them imagine that something goes wrong and how you would react to that. That’s kind of what being a Who is like. Especially in this story, that’s what being a Who is like. This perfect world in which nothing ever goes wrong, suddenly is turned upside down.”
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5) Dr. Seuss’s widow Audrey inherited the film rights, and she’s chosen Jim Carrey not once but twice.
“I was really honored that it was the first thing out of her mouth when they come to her with Horton,” Carrey recalled. “‘Can you get Jim Carrey?’ So I feel really honored that she wants me to be a part of the legacy. I just feel wonderful that two of these projects have come my way. I’m such a fan of Dr. Seuss. It’s a great thing.”
6) Though you won’t see Steve and Jim making faces, animation took their voices to new places.
“I think there’s a freedom within the limitations,” said Carell. “I think when you are given sort of a structure and you can do anything within that structure, there’s something freeing to that. As opposed to: you can do anything, any time, anywhere. Sometimes you just don’t know where to focus, at least for me. Really, the heavy lifting is done by the animators. I think we provide as much as we can vocally but then you see it, and you see where they’ve taken whatever you’ve done vocally, and it’s remarkable.”[PAGEBREAK]
7) He talks from his butt and bounces around, but Jim Carrey‘s beliefs are rather profound.
“How can you look at the sky at night and not feel that you’re a speck somewhere?” asked Carrey. “I saw a picture on Discovery Channel one time of Earth from Mars and you could hardly find it. It was a speck. We truly are a speck. So there are all different levels of that. I’ve always thought there were worlds within worlds within worlds though. Somewhere on my right arm, inside a cell, there’s some kind of world happening where people are sitting there, going, ‘Oh, I hope we don’t destroy ourselves. He could swing that arm and hit it against a tree, and we’re gone.’ There are worlds of people. It’s Armageddon in my pants right now. I swear to God, it’s Armageddon.”
8) Steve Carell is thankful for his success so far, and thanks most of all his Horton costar.
“I owe a lot to Jim, frankly, for any of my success,” said Carell. “Essentially the first movie I was ever in was Bruce Almighty. I never got auditions for movies and it was one of the first I’d ever gotten. I said this to Jim a week or two ago, that I remember watching Liar, Liar and thinking, ‘That looks like the most fun you could possibly have just being on set, and at the end, the outtakes. Man, that just looks like a party.’ In my wildest dreams, I didn’t think I would ever be able to be a part of that. Then a couple years later, I was. I’m still pinching myself every time.”
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9) If your children feel like they don’t belong, tell them that Jim Carrey once sang the same song.
“I’ve always been drawn to things that are different,” said Carrey. “I felt odd anyway, as a child. So anything odd, I went, ‘Oh, those are my people. The Sneetches without Stars, I dig those people.’ There’s something very original about the whole thing. That’s what draws kids. I was the baby of the family. I guess my father was strange. My father was funny and strange, and I looked at him and I went, ‘Wow. Everybody’s looking at my Dad, and everybody’s laughing at my Dad.’ I just immediately kind of wanted to be that. So I locked myself in my room when all the other kids were outside playing, and was devising ways to make myself appear to be different somehow.”
10) Horton is the third Dr. Seuss story Hollywood decided to tell, but there are many more rhyming fantasies they can sell.
“I’d love to do Green Eggs and Ham,” said Carell. “I think I could do a lot with it. It does sound ridiculous to even talk about it, doesn’t it? Ultimately though, you think about, ‘So you’re doing Horton Hears a Who?‘ It sounds sort of odd. You’re in the movie version of Horton Hears a Who. Then you see it, and you say, ‘Of course.’ It completely makes sense. So maybe Green Eggs and Ham is a blockbuster of the future. You never know.”
