From visionary director Andy Serkis (The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum), and featuring the voices of Seth Rogen, Kathleen Turner, Glenn Close, and Woody Harrelson, comes a satirical allegory of revolution and power.
Animal Farm traces how a movement for equality is systematically corrupted. As the pigs consolidate control, truth is erased, dissent is crushed, and the farm descends into a ruthless dictatorship—fulfilling George Orwell's warning about the dangers of communism.
A few days ago, we sat down with Serkis and Turner for a brief conversation about this new take on Animal Farm. After they reflect on their collaboration in the recording booth, we also hear from the filmmaker on how he approached his first animated feature.
Turner, who many of you will know best for her role as Jessica Rabbit in the 1988 classic Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, also explains what drew her to the role of Benjamin, before Serkis opens up about assembling such an impressive cast of established and rising stars.
You can watch our full interview with Serkis and Turner in the player below.
There's so much more to voice acting than I think a lot of people realise, and I'd love to know what you both enjoyed about the actor-director dynamic that you found in the recording booth together.
Andy Serkis: I didn't have to do anything when Kathleen was in the booth because she just knocked it out of the park from take one to take three. But you didn't have to do more than three takes, I noticed.
Kathleen Turner: Well, I don't usually. But no, Andy is a very specific director. I mean, he can't tell you exactly what he wants to hear or what he's thinking. That makes it all very easy.
Andy, as an actor, you've been to Middle-earth, Gotham City, Wakanda, but when it came to telling this Animal Farm story and doing it in animation, was there anything new that you discovered along the way as an actor and a filmmaker, having had so much experience behind you?
Andy Serkis: Well, originally we intended to make this as a live-action movie and then with performance capture. So, it would have been actors climbing into suits and wearing head-mounted cameras and doing it in a live-action environment. But it became very clear that it would have been a darker film as a result. And actually, the veil, this magical veil of animation that enabled you to tell a fable with more innocence and therefore be able to not be so on the nose politically and actually be able to couch it in humour and the innocence of an animated movie, really was the big learning curve in terms of how I wanted to present the story. So that was a big decision and one I'm so glad that we took because now we've created a movie for everyone. Kids and adults alike can hopefully enjoy this movie.
Kathleen, you've got so many iconic roles behind you on the animation front. I know people will, of course, bring up Jessica Rabbit, but playing Benjamin, what was it that attracted you to him?
Kathleen Turner: Oh, his cynicism. And I mean, he's very practical. He's rather cynical, and he's just inherently a survivor. And I suppose I think of myself very much that way. So there you go. I just called myself a donkey. Oh, it is fun.
Andy, to add that coming-of-age element to the story as well. I really enjoyed that. So, you know, to have obviously a legend like Kathleen Turner on the one hand and then rising stars like Iman [Vellani] and Gaten [Matarazzo] on the other. How exciting was that for you as a filmmaker?
Andy Serkis: Oh, it's fantastic. I mean, I've said this before, but I mean this, you know, this wasn't made for any algorithm. We were not trying to fit this into any box to be ticked. We cast people we really thought would get the characters. And what Gayton offered, and Iman and their relationship was quite incredible, and Iman, we threw another character at her. So Tammy originally was just playing Puff and Puff, and Tammy became twin sisters so that we could see this sort of again, and Tammy became the manifestation of Molly in the book, who is this foal who is obsessed with sugar and ribbons. And so we wanted that aspect of a character that was fully buying into the fantasy of becoming a pig that adored its populist leader. But it was great fun. I mean, it was great fun to work with everyone, but also everyone was there because of the passion for the source material, and then, like you say, the coming-of-age story was necessary because you've got to take the audience into the world in a film in a different way than you do in a book. The audience should learn alongside.
Kathleen Turner: Correct. Absolutely. And that's the joy of it.
Animal Farm arrives in theaters on May 1.