MONSTERS UNIVERSITY sees Pixar favourites Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) and James P. Sullivan (John Goodman) at the start of their journey to become scarers. Rivals from day one, the pair manage to enrage the Dean of the University, Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren) who promptly boots the warring pair out of the scaring programme. Desperately wanting to return to their aspirational scaring ways, they resolve to befriend the outcasts and failed scarers in the Oozma Kappa sorority and enter Dean Hardscrabble’s Scare Games to win their right to reenter the scaring programme. Helen Mirren gives an authoritative performance as Dean Hardscrabble and THN were lucky enough to attend the press conference with the Dame in attendance, along with director Dan Scanlon and producer Kori Rae.
How many iterations of the story did you go through before the final draft?
Rae: Literally hundreds. We have several forms of the story, then we sit down with the editors and get the finished result.
Scanlon: It took about four years in total to arrive at what we have now.
Dame Helen, Dean Hardscrabble is a pretty intimidating teacher in the film, did you base her on anyone you knew?
Mirren: Not really, no, I didn’t. Although it’s funny, I was thinking of my interview for my first school earlier today and I remember the sheer terror of the whole thing. I mean, she was a nun as well, and I was so frightened of her. But she gave me the best advice I’ve ever heard. She said, the worst thing about fear is fear itself. I’d like to think a part of her is in Dean Hardscrabble.
Was it difficult to get into the character of Dean Hardscrabble?
Mirren: Well eventually the character who appears is a result of the actor working with the director. Dan was kind enough to help me along with it and we sat down and worked out the best direction to go with her. Once you’ve found the voice, the character follows pretty naturally.
What in the world scares each of you the most?
Rae: Public speaking!
Scanlon: Oh God, clowns, clowns are horrifying.
Mirren: Oh I was terrified of clowns, you’ve stolen my answer! I’ve only just remembered that. I am terrified of insects, too, any insects really.
So was it scary for you playing a centipede in the film? (Hardscrabble is a terrifying collection of centipede and bat, crawling and swooping her way around campus to terrify freshmen)
Mirren: Well I was quite detached from the character while we were recording, but to be honest, having a hundred legs would just be an excuse to buy a hundred pairs of shoes!
In MONSTERS UNIVERSITY, a lot of the central action revolves around dreams being chased and achieved. Did any of you ever have a dream that didn’t work out?
Mirren: I’m sure you can all relate to watching those people who waft through life never being challenged. I think we identify strongly with these two characters because they don’t waft through life and they work to achieve their dreams.
Was there anything you parted with in the final edit?
Scanlon: Not a lot so that I feel like we left a lot out, if you know what I mean? I mean, we threw a ton out but I’m glad it’s gone. Every Pixar movie is terrible at the start, then it goes through an awkward teenager stage before we arrive at the finished product.
Who is your favourite monster of all time?
Rae: Well I’m kind of biased towards this movie, but Dean Hardscrabble.
Scanlon: You stole my answer! Do you mean in the movie or in general?
I mean in general.
Mirren: Well Godzilla was always great, but I think the uber-scary monster who Hardscrabble would appreciate is the alien from the ALIEN movies.
Scanlon: I think stop motion King Kong was always really creepy. It’s just the way the old stop motion characters moved which made them really scary.
Dame Helen, do you feel like you’re developing in your career by trying new things like this? Doing voice acting now and action with RED?
Mirren: Every stage of my career has been different and interesting. Travelling through Africa for ‘Conference Of The Birds’, for instance, and doing things like that people would sometimes say, “What are you doing that for!” Sometimes you just have to jump into the deep end even if you feel like you’ll fail miserably.
How do you control fear and that inner monster?
Scanlon: Well there’s always going to be a lot of comparing this Pixar movie to other Pixar movies and you just have to put that in the back of your head as you make it.
Mirren: I think you’ve just got to get on with it really. It’s my business at the end of the day. The other thing is to pretend that you’re not frightened, I think that’s always important.
You have so much authority without your presence on screen, how did you manage that?
Mirren: Well first of all, thank you. I would love to have been with Billy and John and seen the masters at work. I think Americans are brilliant at this – Brits aren’t so good. I had a lot of help from Dan and I found it very difficult, so I’m glad you thought that.
Are you afraid of any real-life monsters?
Mirren: Well there were certainly actors when I was younger who were very intimidating. Well, I bet people would even see me now as intimidating, which I sincerely hope they don’t. But I grew up in the 50s and you didn’t go and sit at the same table as Olivier or Gielgud, so I always found them very intimidating.
In a kids movie like this, there has to be a certain balance between actual scariness, cuteness and human moments. How do you find that balance?
Rae: Dan and the production team work with each character individually to work out what they mean to the story and what they look like.
Scanlon: I think we like to trust the kids to work it out themselves.
Is it quite nice not to sit in make up before shooting?
Mirren: Oh it’s fabulous! Not having to wake up at five in the morning and be fiddled with all day! I loved it!
Scanlon: I must say, you did always dress great when you came in. John and Billy don’t really follow the same rule!
Mirren: Oh, I had to do what Hardscrabble would want me to do.
Do you ever stop learning as an actor?
Mirren: Absolutely not! As I said, I would love to have been in the room with Billy and John to see how they did things because they were fantastic. In fact you learn the most from young actors, they’re the best to work with! Everything they do is new and fresh.
MONSTERS UNIVERSITY is released in UK cinemas on July 12th, and audiences will be able to see Mike Wazowski as a young elementary school monster with a dream of being a big league scarer while studying at the Monsters University.
