By Fred Topel | Image property of DreamWorks Animation
Monsters vs. Aliens
Will Arnett's monster in Monsters Vs. Aliens is the missing link. He actually is the fish man that proves evolution, though in the film the point is just that he's a weird looking fish man. With the bravado of Arnett's voice, Link joins a team of monsters defending the world from aliens.
Will Arnett is The Missing Link
"[I enjoyed] being able to, when you're doing each take, to try to kind of top yourself," Arnett said. "Do something a little bit different as you're trying to discover who the character is, try to figure out what kind of makes him funny or what makes him tick. That for me was a lot of fun. Also, seeing everybody else's stuff and realizing that I had to raise my game."
Arnett has done voices in cartoons from Ice Age: The Meltdown to Ratatouille and Horton Hears a Who!, with a new Fox Sunday Night cartoon on the way too.
"It's a challenge because you have to convey the same sentiment just using your voice. Of course, the animators are helping you out and they're drawing all this stuff, so you go in, you get the script, you start to record when they're just early on, when they just have animatics. Then they have to animate to what you've done initially. It's a constant back and forth. They draw stuff, then you have to vocalize what they've done potentially, but they really kind of compliment each other."
Monsters vs. Aliens
Monsters vs. Aliens
As a viewer, Arnett enjoys watching the film's action scenes, where he didn't do a lot of talking. "The sequences when the alien first lands and they all attack it, when the military attacks it with all these bombs and guns and stuff was pretty amazing to look at. I also like the scene where the alien's chasing Susan through San Francisco and she's running across the rooftops. She makes one final jump and ends up grabbing the gutter and then just falls like two inches or whatever. That was a really fun scene."
He also sees the film's positive message for kids. "It's got a tremendous message. Right from the get go, the world realizes that they have to embrace these people who are different. I think that that's a very positive thing that can't be reinforced enough. We live in a world now where we think that we're very progressive and advanced. It's only when we can break all that stuff down that we really can consider ourselves progressive. So I think it's a great message."
Add to Heffee!
