How difficult was it to play a cartoon character without being too cartoonish?
Challenge is certainly something I’m always up for. Not knowing exactly how to play a cartoon character, and being given the world of a live-action feature to live in, I guess that was my job, to sort of split the difference and borrow from the energy of an animated short and apply that to a real, three-dimensional person, give him a soul, and make him a human being. And at the same time, be able to swing around out of control, smash into things, have talking apes populating a magical jungle kingdom that’s descended upon by evil, bungling poachers, and ending up with all manner of jungle creatures. Do you enjoy doing physical comedy? It’s clearly a favorite form of mine. My heroes have always been Rowan Atkinson and Bill Irwin and, gosh, David Shiner, Benny Hill. The Three Stooges? I think the Three Stooges were sometimes unfocused, but a lot of fun at the same time. I think that there’s always a lot more to be said with fewer words, very often. How did you know going in that the scrip
