STX Entertainment's UglyDolls has now arrived on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD and to commemorate its home video debut, CBM was recently granted an exclusive opportunity to sit down with director Kelly Asbury, whose past directorial credits also include Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Shrek 2, Gnomeo & Juliet and Smurfs: The Lost Village.
He also contributed, as story artist, on a number of animated classics, including The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Toy Story, James and the Giant Peach, The Prince of Egypt, Shrek, Shrek the Third, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Wreck-It Ralph and Frozen.
In our lengthy chat, we discuss the process behind making his latest animated adventure, the longevity of animated children's films, his musical voice cast, Nick Jonas, bringing another set of toys to life and what's next on his docket.
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ROHAN: So, when tackling an original film like UglyDolls, which I believe has been in some stage of development for quite a while, how early in the process did you get involved, as the director, and how long does it typically take an original animated film to get into theaters?
KELLY ASBURY: Well, that's a two part question. In the normal animation world, the development process could go on for years before it's actually greenlit and you can have a lot of different versions and different writers and try all kinds of things.
In the case of UglyDolls, it had been in development for a little over a year, maybe fourteen months. My producer has been on it the whole time and it involved an entirely different group of people, but it reached a point where STX was needing the movie finished very quickly and they knew that, in the current situation, that it was just not going to get done fast enough.
So, Jane Hartwell, who I knew from previous movies we’d worked on, gave me a call and said “Can you come in and take a look?,” So, I looked at the script and I looked at all the work that had been done, and I thought, ‘Well, there's a really fun movie to be made here.’ and they said, ‘Well, can you do it in a year?,’ and, so, I came in very late in the process and I was literally on the movie, almost to the day, one year. I didn't realize it until the day we wrapped though. I looked at the calendar and said, ‘I think this is when I started a year ago.’
We did a lot of work very quickly, we accelerated everything and it was a case of - whereas everything would be compartmentalized, one step at a time, in a normal animated process - we did everything at the same time. So, all decisions were made on the fly and a lot of things were done very quickly and I enjoyed that because it was forcing decisions, it was forcing us to be more efficient - where normally there'd be a roadblock and we would be haggling over it for weeks and weeks - we couldn't do that.
So, it was an oddly freeing process, but at the same time, it's been hectic. I don't know if that makes sense, but there was something fun about just doing it instead of talking about it over and over and over. So, it makes me wonder - I don't know if I would ever do it again in a year - but I think an animated film, a really solid animated movie, could be made in two years if everyone is on the same page about getting it finished, which we were. The deadline was helpful in that way.
ROHAN: Animated films and films geared toward younger audiences tend to have more replay value and longer shelf lives than most live-action stuff. So, when creating a film like UglyDolls, which has a good message to it, and working on films like Toy Story, Shrek 2, and Frozen; do you ever factor that aspect of it into your process? Do you ever consider the fact that your film could carry a message that will most likely still be relevant to kids twenty-something years from now?
KELLY: Well, I think, you know, it's funny. That's a good question because when I'm working on a movie, I don't focus a lot on the message. I try not to. I know that thematically, I like things to, sort of, grow organically out.
In this particular movie, we did have a message we wanted and that was about inclusion and tolerance and all the great messages that are in the movie are really relevant to what's going on today and they are universal. So, I think that, in the case of UglyDolls, I wasn't really thinking about, ‘Okay, this is going to resonate forever,’ but I knew the message was the kind that would.
I do think that UglyDolls will enjoy a lot of replay, a lot of success streaming on TV and all those things, because I think it's got something that - it's an easy film to like. I think children will certainly enjoy it, and I think that parents can enjoy it because the music is good and there's a lot of good things that they can like. It’s not a challenging film, but I think it is an entertaining film and all I want to do is just entertain people and I hope the shelf life is as long as it can be, but I don't really ever predict that or think about it.
ROHAN: Did you always intend for the cast to be filled out by all these super talented musicians, mixed in with a few comedians, or is that something was decided on before you came onboard?
KELLY: When I first came on, I knew one of the things that would streamline the process was to have song numbers and I was the one that implemented the idea that the movie be a musical because I think that songs let characters sing about their feelings and get them out there and you don't have a lot of long dialogue sequences and so, once we decided it was going to be a musical - we already had Pitbull on board and we knew he was going to do something in the movie
Then, we had this great song at the beginning and we thought Kelly Clarkson would be really great and she took the role and once she took the role, it was easier to get some of these other people, like Nick Jonas, who is a friend of hers, and Janelle Monáe, and all these people and everyone was really on board. So, it sort of grew into itself.
There’s something very organic about the way UglyDolls got put together because of the pace we were working at. It really took on a life of its own, if you will. So, we were just moving forward constantly and luckily, we got Wanda Sykes, Gabriel Iglesias and other comedians. They really helped us out with the comedy and luckily, the characters were funny anyways, so we were just moving forward and doing what we could and we were very lucky to get all of these talented people to sign on.
ROHAN: I can definitely tell you that Pitbull sold this movie really well at CinemaCon, he was a riot.
KELLY: *laughs* Yeah, he’s a great guy and was very, very enthusiastic about the movie. He was really one of our best salesmen. So, I was really happy about it.
ROHAN: This is an original film, but you’ve also directed Shrek 2 in the past. Is it a different experience working on something like this where you get to mold the characters versus something like Shrek where the characters were pre-established by a previous installment?
KELLY: Well, it's interesting that you asked that because, you know, UglyDolls was a toy franchise, so there were expectations here and there that were similar to doing a sequel, only because there were certain aspects that the creators of the dolls expected to be in the film and I had to learn about a few rules, as I did with the Smurfs movie that I did prior. There are certain rules those characters live within based on past incarnations, whether it was the toy line or books or whatever, so, we had a few rules to abide by.
In the case of something like Shrek 2, the rules were set in stone, in terms of what the characters were and were not, so it was not that dissimilar to having to make sure that you stay within certain boundaries that are set. That's just a fact, but it actually helped, in this case, because the more boundaries and the more rules they had, the more it was able to help me tune into what the story needed to be and how to simplify things, keep things solid and moving forward.
ROHAN: I also noticed you were on the cast list for additional voices - how fun is that for you to take off the director’s hat for a minute and just play around with different characters.
KELLY: Well, a lot of times, it just sort of sticks. I do some stretch dialogue and we do things that are temporary and then, suddenly it just sticks and you go, ‘Okay, well, you know, this is it. It worked.,’ and everyone's laughing at it, so it's a little unpredictable about what’s going to work and what’s not, but yeah, in every movie I've done, I've done a few voices and they're always on the fly and mean t to just be something to temporarily put in there and then people like it, so I say, ‘okay, well, let's keep it.’ I like it too.
To elaborate a bit more, a lot of things can happen, like we will replace a scratch voice with a professional actor, but it doesn’t end up working or we don't get the same laugh, so we put the temporary voice back in - mine or someone else’s - and sometimes it just really comes down to what’s the best version of a line we can get and if sometimes it's a stretch dialogue voice, we go ahead and use it.
ROHAN: I wanted to ask you about Nick Jonas really quick, because I thought he was excellent as the villain and I think this was the first time we’ve really seen him play that kind of really unlikeable character. Were you surprised by his performance at all?
KELLY: I thought he was great. What I loved about his performance was - we talked before he did it and I told him that this character, Lou, is really the ultimate bully. I said this is a guy whose insecurities are completely tamped down and covered up by his superior attitude and this guy really does bring on the superior attitude and Nick said ‘Oh, we all know that guy.,’ and he was able to just walk right in and give it to us.
Every little nuance he gave us in each of the song performances and the voice, he really did access someone he knew and it was magical. I really loved the performance he gave. We really didn't get a lot of takes from him. I didn’t need them. He walked right into it and in a very good way because he is not like that character at all. He's a super nice guy, really humble and quiet and he really came alive when he got in front of the microphone.
ROHAN: You worked on Toy Story, which has a similar concept of toys coming to life, and even though it’s been twenty-plus years, did your work on that film inform any of your decisions on this one?
KELLY: Well, certainly. We’ve got all of the secret life of everything-type movies made now and I think Gnomeo and Juliet presented the same problem - Toy Story certainly introduced a rule that I think everyone uses now is that in front of humans, the toys can’t move and things like that. That’s just a whimsical, sort of wish fulfillment that I think is magical and so, it’s been used in a lot of movies for a long time. It certainly started with Toy Story, but 101 Dalmatians was also a secret life-type movie, so there’s a lot of films to look back on to help us establish rules of inanimate objects interacting in a human world. It’s just something that I think is almost a standard right now.
ROHAN: What’s next for you? Planning on taking a break or already have something else cooking?
KELLY: I'm actually developing a few things. I've got different studios talking to me about different animated television shows for streaming platforms that I think I'm going to be moving more toward because I'm really interested in doing a longform animated television series and something that’s a little more adult-oriented and a little more PG-13, perhaps. I like the idea of doing something with a little bit of horror in it, so I'm talking to several studios about that and hopefully that will be happening in the next year.
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UglyDolls is now available on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD everywhere, head to the link below to order a copy today!
In the adorably different town of Uglyville, weirdness is celebrated, strangeness is special and beauty is embraced as more than meets the eye. After traveling to the other side of a mountain, Moxy and her UglyDoll friends discover Perfection -- a town where more conventional dolls receive training before entering the real world to find the love of a child. Soon, the UglyDolls learn what it means to be different -- ultimately realizing that they don't have to be perfect to be amazing.