COLLIDER:I want to start off by saying huge congratulations on the Oscar nomination.
Where were you guys when you found out, and how did you celebrate?
MERLIN CUNNINGHAM: I was at the studio in Bristol.
Photo by Jefferson Chacon
We had it on our laptop.
And then a hush came down, and then a huge cheer went up when we got the nomination.
So, it was a lovely feeling.
Image Via Netflix
NICK PARK: At the same time, I was up north in Lancashire with my wife.
We were streaming it from the Academy in the same way on the computer.
PARK: [Laughs] Well have to talk about that.
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PARK: Theydolive in our real world.
Oh, obviously, but I think that there are some questions that need answers.
This is a very personal question for Brits.
We see Wallace and Gromit drink a lot of tea.
What do you think is their favorite tea brand?
PARK: Well, I could say Yorkshire, but that would be the wrong county.
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CUNNINGHAM: We did actually make a commercial for PG Tips afterWere-Rabbit.
That was actually one of the very first things I ever directed on my own.
Have we got any brand alliances at the moment?
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If Wallace and Gromit had a shared Spotify account, who do you think their top artist would be?
CUNNINGHAM: Doggy Osmond.
PARK: The Hound of Music.
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CUNNINGHAM: Gromit likes Bark.
PARK: Yeah, he does like Bark.
CUNNINGHAM: What would Wallace listen to?
They would probably be in quite poor taste, so we probably better not say who.
PARK: T Bone Burnett.
PARK: I thinkDIY Another Daywould certainly be a title.
OrNo Time to DIY.
CUNNINGHAM: But it would be the [Sean] Connery era, do you think?
PARK: Or Roger Moores cheesy.
CUNNINGHAM: He is cheesy.
PARK: Wallace would prefer Roger Moore.
Probably Gromit a bit more Sean Connery, wouldnt he, with a bit more taste?
CUNNINGHAM: Didnt someone put a voice on him once?
PARK: Yeah, somebody.
I dont know if its Denmark, but it was somewhere…
CUNNINGHAM: Latvia or Scandinavia.
PARK: It could have been Sweden.
Or Finland, even.
Some foreign TV station decided to dub Gromit.
Did they write in dialogue for him that wasnt in the original?
CUNNINGHAM: Yeah, thats right.
PARK: We didn’t know until afterwards, but they dubbed it for TV.
CUNNINGHAM: But we always think of Gromit as having an internal dialogue.
So we were always conscious of that.
I mean, it’s loose.
Its not like, This is what he would say.
Its, This is what he’s thinking.
Its a general kind of thought process.
To do that, as Merlin says, we often have to say dialogue.
When Gromit’s acting, if he goes like, What?
That makes total sense.
Do you do the same for Feathers McGraw and all the non-speaking characters?
PARK: We do, actually, yeah.
Although, Feathers is a little bit more abstract.
Hes a lot more mysterious, so it tends to be based on quite simple matters of timing.
CUNNINGHAM: It certainly helps.
Where Is Feathers McGraw Now?
“He said, Don’t call us.
We’ll call you.
Are you setting it up for Feathers to have another day, do you think?
Where do you think he’s gone now on the train?
PARK: It’s somewhere in the Yorkshire at the moment.
He’s so mysterious that he hasn’t told us what he’s doing yet.
CUNNINGHAM: He said, Don’t call us.
We’ll call you.
PARK: So no real plans at the moment.
This story is very much a discussion of AI, modern technology, and how it affects society.
Is that a purposeful decision?
Feathers McGraw steals the show in this safe but fun return to form.
PARK: Yeah, it is a conscious decision.
CUNNINGHAM: It was very conscious.
PARK: All the things we do.
CUNNINGHAM: It’s like a time gone by, isn’t it?
Its a non-specific time gone by where things are chunky and old and more mechanical.
So, making sure they looked old and historic technology was important.
it’s possible for you to have contemporary messages in that, which was very clever of him.
They’re not in the present day.
They are already from a time slightly gone by then.
Theyre already slightly from the past, and I think that’s one of the things that helps them.
Lauren Patel’s P.C.
This film is so referential of the past.
I do want to give a shoutout to Lauren Patel as P.C.
Mukherjee because she quickly became one of my favorite characters in the franchise.
I think she’s so brilliant.
What went into her characterization?
CUNNINGHAM: We were talking with Mark about it just earlier, actually.
PARK: She was like a comic foil for him being the old-fashioned, almost retiring key in.
She was a great kind of new blood.
She was a bit of a force of nature, really.
We loved the way that Lauren’s voice sounded.
We did try some other performers, but hers just clicked.
It was quite obvious when we heard her.
That’s when we worked with Holly and Barunka.
CUNNINGHAM: Yeah, they do.
And the weird thing is that we didn’t actually record them together, either.
They never actually met in person when they were recording.
Between us, we had to ensure that it sounded like it was a coherent conversation.
Were you expecting that to have such a warm reception?
He kind of stayed in it all the way through.
CUNNINGHAM: It was one of those jokes that was there right from the beginning.
So, we would always ask him if we should do this edit or not.
PARK: He may be coming to the Oscars.
We don’t know.
People would very much support that.
CUNNINGHAM: Oh, I dont know.
We’re not involved in that.
PARK: No, we haven’t been.
But it’s a wonderful franchise.
I loved it since I was quite little.
But now we’ve got a clash of penguins.
CUNNINGHAM: Theyll very much stay in their own kind of…
PARK: In their own worlds.
Are you guys involved in the workPokemonis doing with Aardman?
CUNNINGHAM: We’re not.
That’s been running alongside.
We’ve been so deep in making this film.
From what we’ve seen, it looks amazing.
PARK: It’s got some great people on it.
CUNNINGHAM: I think that’s going to be an absolute smash when it comes out.
Do you think it’ll be another 20 years?
CUNNINGHAM: Give us a chance to have a lie down.
Lie down, and then…
PARK: There are always more ideas with Wallace and Gromit.
So, watch this space.
When you did the Q&A with Steve, he asked about a possibleChicken Runcrossover.
Do you think that could be something that we’ll see?
CUNNINGHAM: I don’t think so.
PARK: We don’t tend to mix up our worlds.
But we wouldn’t really mix up their worlds.
Bringing Gromit and Ginger together, though, I feel like they could take over the world or something.
PARK: That would be surreal, though, wouldnt it?
Shed be bigger than Gromit.
You’d have to do a scale.
He cant quite understand Ginger speaking.
You get into all sorts of…
It’s like time-traveling dilemmas.
Will Wallace or Gromit Ever Find Love?
“Relationships tend to be a bit doomed.”
CUNNINGHAM: The only one sort of fan-wise is Fluffles, isn’t it?
PARK: No one’s mentioned her until recently.
CUNNINGHAM: No, it’s a quite recent thing.
We’ve had feedback from fans saying, Oh, it would be amazing if Fluffles came back!
This has been a bit of an exception to the rule, really, bringing Feathers back.
PARK: Yes, and we didn’t set out to bring Feathers back.
CUNNINGHAM: Or Mac.
I was really hoping for a Gromit romance, and Wallace, as well.
I know hes been through a lot Bake-O-Lite girl.
Relationships tend to be a bit doomed.
CUNNINGHAM: They are the love story.
PARK: It is really true.
That’s what this film was about.
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