“We became this really bad theater troupe”–Johnny Depp on filming RANGO

In a recent interview with Access Hollywood’s Maria Menounos, Johnny Depp spoke about the unusual process director Gore Verbinski used to record the actors’ voice for his new animated film (and current box office champion) Rango.

MARIA MENOUNOS: In Rango, you guys actually acted out your scenes. Instead of just going into the voice-over booth and doing the voice, you acted it out. Did that help you?

JOHNNY DEPP: It definitely helps. It definitely does. I didn’t want to admit that, initially (laughing) . . . but it definitely helps. Yeah, because it’s like, in a weird way, it’s like all these amazing characters that Gore brought together, we became this really bad theater troupe. So it was like doing the worst regional theater you could possibly be doing, because you’re wandering through, trying to pretend that you’re a lizard or some kind of hedgehog, or whatever it was, on this soundstage, with minimal props, minimal sets.

But ultimately, what it does is, it takes you beyond the idea of motion capture, which becomes sort of emotion capture, and they were able to get, you know, body language and reactions behind the eyes that normally they would have had to sort of make up. So . . . I think it worked really well. Really well.

MARIA MENOUNOS: I saw a little Jack Sparrow there, with all the little poses that the little lizard guy would do. It was cute.

JOHNNY DEPP: (laughing) Yeah, Jack won’t leave me. He won’t leave me alone.

The Zone thanks AnaMaria and Theresa for sharing the Access Hollywood video. You can read much more about Rango on the Zone’s News & Views forum and Porch General Discussion forum.

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