Guest Post – Epic: The Actors Speak About Their Characters

On May 24th, the creators of Ice Age present their latest film Epic, which will be released in theaters nationwide.

I had a chance to interview the a few of the actors and find out what they thought about their characters after I attended the New York City Premiere. I also got to speak to director Chris Wedge and covered some of his thoughts on the film in my post about walking the green carpet. The funniest parts of the interviews came from actors Aziz Ansari and Chris O’Dowd. They play Mub and Grub the snail and slug comedy duo in the film. Considering that these are both comic actors you can just imagine what happened at the interview. This was their first blogger roundtable interview and they had a lot of fun with it. Aziz had worked with director Chris Wedge before in Ice Age: Continental Drift so this was a project he was happy take on. Chris O”Dowd admits he wasn’t sure at first, but after meeting director Chris Wedge and seeing the early designs of the movie he just knew he wanted to be part of this magical world. This was O’Dowd’s first time in an animated film. Although for most of the movie their characters are together they actually recorded the voices separately. They had one session together and then O’Dowd did the rest in Ireland where he was on the set of another movie. I have to say their characters really steal the show. Who knew you could fall in love with a slug and snail?!

The next round of interviews was with actors Colin Farrell and Amanda Seyfried. Colin plays Ronin the leader of the Leafmen and father figure to Josh Hutcherson’s character Nod. Farrell also admitted that after meeting Chris and his team and getting a first hand look at the visuals got him on board to play the part. He loves the environmental message the script portrays in this battle of good versus evil. Colin joked about rolling around in the forest before coming into work to get him in the mood. He also answered some tough questions about lose and being a single parent since his character Ronin deals with similar issues. Seyfried’s character,M.K., is a strong willed teenage girl that also just lost her mother, something that Seyfried says she can’t imagine. When asked if she could relate to the character Seyfried said, “….this girl is somebody I can relate to because she’s very headstrong and honest and wants to know what it is she’s about.  And, I’m struggling with that every day.” An interesting insight to not only the character of M.K., but to Amanda herself.

Epic opens in theaters May 24th, 2013

Disclosure: All assets were provided by 20th Century Fox. I have not been compensated and all thoughts are my own.

Milena Barrett is a freelance writer and owner of Be Your Best Mom.com where she offers her readers reviews, giveaways and a smidge of real life parenting stories from her life.  She enjoys photography, art, and has a love/hate relationship with exercise. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her husband, two sons, and neurotic cat.