Sounds good, except for the fact that Penny is a character on a TV show and Bolt doesn’t actually have superpowers. He’s a regular dog who has spent virtually his whole life on a soundstage, living the adventure and not knowing the difference between fantasy and reality.
The CG film from Walt Disney Pictures currently in theatres features the voices of John Travolta as Bolt, Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus as Penny, Susie Essman as Mittens the cat, and Mark Walton as Rhino the hamster.
As trailers for the film began appearing in theatres and on the Internet, audiences quickly began to realize that there was something about Bolt that was different from what seems to have become the standard for Disney animation. It was edgier, actually more reminiscent of Pixar than the Mouse House – not really surprising considering that Pixar’s John Lasseter now runs Disney Animation as well.
Sharing writing and directing duties are Chris Williams and Byron Howard, who between them have been involved with Mulan, John Henry, The Emperor’s New Groove, Lilo & Stitch, Brother Bear and Chicken Little. Both actually agree with the assessment that Bolt seems like a Pixar film.
“Hopefully what people are responding to is the fact that John Lasseter always pushes for really great, compelling, rich characters,” says Williams. “That’s what Pixar always delivers and hopefully that’s what we’re delivering with Bolt.”
Howard agrees, emphasizing that with Lasseter there is always a concern that films be “very clear about character appeal and really good storytelling. Building the story with John, the Pixar team and our own team, we put it through the same process they do. Truthfully, they’re very hard on their films, but all you have to do is look at the results they end up with. They try and make sure the characters are solid, the decisions the characters make are believable and the worlds that they inhabit are entertaining and winning.”
Which, of course, raises the question of what went on in Disney Animation in terms of story development prior to the arrival of Lasseter. “I think maybe that kind of intense focus is what we lacked a little bit,” muses Howard. “John is such a huge fan of animation. You can see it on his face when he loves something, and that filters down to the rest of the crew. It just feels like the entire studio has picked up the mantle and really stepped up on this film.”
This emphasis on story and character is a trademark of Pixar, and the results are characters in Bolt that really pop on screen. “There’s a great complexity the character of Bolt has that makes him compelling,” opines Williams. “I think that this character really plays to John Travolta’s strengths. The thing about John’s career is that a lot of his great roles have been real tough guys, the real bad dudes, and I think that he gets away with it and plays it really well because he has this innate sweetness to him, so no matter how tough or vicious his characters are, there’s always this thing that contradicts that. I think there’s something that Bolt definitely has where he thinks he’s this really tough character who can take on armies of supervillains and thinks he has these incredible powers, and thinks that he’s a deadly character. But he’s just an ordinary puppy dog. I think that the tough guy and sweet side of John Travolta shine in Bolt.”
Howard agrees, noting, “Bolt as a character turned out particularly strong. It’s a real challenge with animated films not to make the lead character too vanilla and boring. The nice thing about Bolt is that he has this compelling back story and this strange situation that as a puppy he was brought onto the set and has known nothing else except for this high octane action show he experiences every week, so when he’s thrown out into the real world, he’s got some deep, emotional issues to deal with.
“The important thing for us,” he elaborates, “is that the three characters – the hamster, the cat and the dog – all had to be developed simultaneously. The dynamic between them had to work really well. We knew nothing else mattered until the three of them were going to be able to be in a scene together and play off of each other and bring out the fun elements in each other. Once we got to that place, then we knew we had it. But the three of them had to work as a unit.”
Getting to that point wasn’t always easy as members of the animation team served as the temporary voice talent. Considering that they are not trained actors, things could be a little… flat. Yet when legitimate actors started stepping in, the situation changed immediately.
“An actor really does influence the character,” points out Howard. “A good example of that is Miley Cyrus. We originally had the voice of Penny, the character she plays who’s Bolt’s owner on the show, cast as a young much younger voice. But Miley’s voice is kind of rough and raspy and it’s got a lot of character to it. When we met her, we were amazed she was only 15, because she was so mature and so together and she has such a crazy life and schedule – almost like the girl on the TV show in the film, because she has all of these responsibilities and agents and Hollywood chaos that surrounds her. When Miley lent her voice to the character, it really brought a neat kind of maturity where we found out, ‘This girl [Penny] has actually got a good head on her shoulders and she really cares about this dog.’ So she really brought something new to the role that wasn’t originally there.”
States Williams, “While we were storyboarding the movie, we were trying to create really clear and entertaining characters, but the cast will start to bring something that helps to guide the character as well. They have a huge impact on how, ultimately, the character feels and plays. One thing in animation is that you definitely gain an appreciation for the art of acting. Initially we’ll get people in the building to temporarily provide their voices for what will ultimately be the real actors. We’ll play the movie and it will be awful to listen to our own voices as the character. The exception, however, was our own Mark Walton. When he played Rhino, he was just fantastic and the decision was made to keep him in the role. And from there you bring in the real actors and that magical and intangible thing they bring is amazing. They really have a gift and the characters really can’t sing until really great actors are in place.”