19 / 97
17
FEATURE
CINEMA
“I don’t know. It's just always been raspy
and deep,” Arnett replies as his co-star
persists, “Did your parents feed you tarmac
when you were a kid?”
Arnett hits back with: “No, but for vitamins,
we always had a steaming cup of crushed
glass in the morning.”
It’s little surprise they have an easy banter,
given that Batman and The Joker share
what can only be described as a bromance
in the film, which, according to Galifianakis,
was “conceived on that day. And then we
continued having sex throughout the recording
session.”
Even if the Dark Knight prefers to go it
alone, he is reluctantly joined by Rosario
Dawson’s Police Commissioner Barbara
Gordon/Batgirl and adopted son Dick Grayson/
Robin, voiced by Michael Cera.
The
LEGO Batman Movie
also features an
insane number of superheroes and villains,
from Superman, The Riddler, Two-Face,
Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, to
lesser known and downright
un
known baddies
such as Calendar Man and The Condiment
King.
Look out, too, for villains from
Harry Potter
and
The Lord of the Rings
alongside the
Gremlins, Godzilla and even the Daleks – the
latter referred to in the movie as “British
robots”; Galifianakis claiming he’d never heard
of
Doctor Who
prior to
LEGO Batman
.
If either actor imagined that the film would
earn them brownie points with their young
kids, then think again.
“When they hear me do the voice, they say:
'Can I have my iPad?'” offers Arnett, who has
two young sons with ex-wife Amy Poehler.
“I usually just get: 'You’re not my real
dad,'” adds Galifianakis. “But I will say this:
The other day, because I have this TV show,
Baskets
, my picture is on the side of a bus
and my kid is at eye-level so he could see
it from the back of the car, so I look in the
rearview mirror to see what he’s doing,
and he just looks at it, and he looks straight
ahead and makes a long sighing noise. That’s
all he did. No dialogue. He knew it was me
and he just sighed like, ‘How long
is this going to go on?’”
Working closely with
Animal Logic in Australia,
Arnett often found
himself Skyping with director Chris McKay in
Sydney.
“One day I was doing the Batman voice on
a Saturday and they didn’t have school
so they came with me, and McKay
said they needed some kid voices
and he’s like, 'Let’s record them'.
And so I’m like, 'OK, do you guys
want to do it?' And my 8-year-old
doesn’t want the attention but my Abel, just as
I’m asking him if he wants to do it, passes me
and goes: 'Yeah just tell me what to say', and
he got up on the seat and just waited.
“So now they’re the voices of the orphans
when Batman visits the orphanage, going ‘We
love you!’.”
Unimpressed, Galifianakis shrugs. “So
there’s no nepotism in Hollywood…”
The
LEGO Batman
filmmakers took their
time choosing their BatGirl, with McKay
saying he was drawn to Rosario Dawson
because of her activism and girl power.
Chatting with Dawson, she tells
STACK
how she dealt with bizarre social media hate
following her casting.
“People were like, she’s Latina, wait a
second, Barbara Gordon’s supposed to have
red hair! And I was like, guys, this is an
animated movie voice-over, you’re going to be
really shocked to see all the people who voice
your favourite characters, they’re black,
brown, Asian, you know. A
woman
does Bart’s voice, sorry to break it
down for you! Get used to it.”
None of the cast even had a
glimpse at the vast scope of
LEGO
Batman
’s universe while voicing
their roles. “Some of the stuff they
put in it isn’t fully emphasised,” says
Dawson. “It’s more Where’s Waldo-
ish. It’s there in the background, and the
more you watch it – and parents are going to
have to watch it over and over again – you'll
definitely catch more, like you’ll see Wonder
Woman in it next time, dancing in Superman’s
lair.”
Ask Galifianakis if there’s a dream superhero
he’d like to play, and he’s all over it. “If it had
nothing to do with the Batman world, then
Jesus Christ, for sure.”
And which villain?
“Same answer. Also
Jesus Christ," he laughs, "depending on your
preferred point of view.
"The Joker is fun and villains are fun to play,"
he adds. "I’ve never played a bad guy before –
not that I think this guy is a traditional bad
guy, but I don’t think you can get any
better than The Joker as far as a villain
is concerned. But as far as a good guy
goes – yeah, Jesus.”
•
The LEGO
Batman Movie
is in cinemas on
March 30
I don't think you can get any
better than The Joker as far as
a villain is concerned