surf up 45

Shia LaBeouf and Jon Heder Play Surfing Buddies in Surf's Up

From Fred Topel, for About.com
Filed In:

1. Films By Genre
2. > Teen Movies
3. > Surf's Up

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Chicken Joe (voiced by Jon Heder) and Cody Maverick (voiced by Shia LaBeouf) in the animated movie Surf's Up.
© 2007 Sony Pictures Animation
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Movie stars already lead the ultimate life, but when you record vocal tracks in a studio and still get to go to Hawaii to promote the film, that's pretty awesome. Shia LaBeouf stars in Surf's Up as Cody, a penguin who dreams of surfing. Jon Heder plays Chicken Joe, even more of an outcast than the surfing penguins. Interviewing on the island of Oahu almost made one feel like they were in the animated Pen Gu island. Heder dressed the part in plaid shorts and LaBeouf sported a nice tan from a weekend in the sun.

What was the experience like working on the voices for this and getting to work with other actors?

Jon Heder: “For me, I have never had a normal… I did one voice on another movie, Monster House, and even then I’ve never done a normal voice over, because that was all motion capture. So, that was like shooting a film. Like, we had props and everything. This was the closest because we had the little music stand with our dialogue and stuff, but it was kind of in a big open room. I mean, for me, I only have one scene that we did it with – I mean a couple with Shia and then one with Zooey [Deschanel]. Yeah, it was kind of cool and different because it was interactive because we would actually wrestle and move around and that helped around.”

Shia LaBeouf: “The only cartoon I’ve done was this translation and so you have to stick to script a lot of the time. And when you have a lot of the actors in the room, you get to adlib. Chris [Buck] and Ash [Brannon] would encourage it, because it was reality show live. So, the cadence was different. It’s not like the ba-dunch-dunch, joke. It’s more ‘Spinal Tappy.’ There are these little intricate moments that you get when the other actor’s there. Noises you wouldn’t write down on a piece of paper in scripted form. So, it was great that we were encouraged to do it and that [the directors] let us, encouraged us to do it. We were in a really good environment for this.”

How did you get a full-bodied performance with just your voice?

Jon Heder: “Well, when you are in a scene and there is some kind of action laid out and you are kind of doing it along, even though you know the camera is not going to see any of this... I’m not sure if they showed it to the animators, sometimes they watch it. But it just helps you get into your voice and kinds of shows through your voice when you are like pushing each other. There are a couple of scenes where we are like kind of pushing each other and wrestling a bit. I think it kind of plays through the voice even though you don’t ultimately see us. You see a chicken and a penguin.”

What makes Cody such an endearing character?

Shia LaBeouf: “Cody wants to be a winner and he comes from a family of people who aren’t encouraging him to follow his dreams, so he’s the underdog. He’s very normal. We are not playing up a lot of the penguin thing; he’s very human. And often times in animation you don’t get that. You don’t get the reality in the character. Sometimes it’s just too shticky. Banana peel, slip, ‘Ah, ha-ha.’ And in a movie like this, you get to find the thread of the soul of the character and get to explore a bunch of stuff you wouldn’t normally have in animation. Especially the fact that he doesn’t have a father. That’s pretty dramatic for animation. Stuff like that was fun.

Jumping around from joking with Jon and having all those laughs and then going into this romance with Zooey [Deschanel], and then going into the father-son thing with Jeff [Bridges], that was a lot of fun for me. Just as a performer, period.”

What was it like to work with Jeff Bridges?

Shia LaBeouf: “Jeff is just really playful. He’s like a nine-year-old with all the experiences he has and the knowledge, but the imagination is that of a nine-year-old. He’ll just riff all day long. He doesn’t care how it sounds or how it comes off. He’s very playful and you feel like you are in a sandbox. And it never stops. It never like, there is never a cut-off point. There is never a ‘Cut’ and he’s off in his own world again. He just maintains it. There is a lot of joy that he brings to the table when he comes to work. And there not a lot of excuses or complaints or anything.”

What does it take to play a penguin? What sort of research goes into that?

Shia LaBeouf: “You gotta talk to other penguins. (Laughing) You gotta get into the mind of a penguin. We would have a lot of great penguin actors who had come off Meet the Penguins and had come on to our set who were like some of the best in the business. They are very prima donna-types though.”

Jon Heder: “I didn’t meet them. I worked with chickens.”

What were your thoughts when you were working on this film and the other penguin movie, Happy Feet, came out?

Shia LaBeouf: “Well, we started before they started. Our movie has been five years in the making. It took them like two or three to make theirs. So have that!”

Jon Heder: “They were way too easy. This was surfing. That’s just penguins being penguins.”

Shia LaBeouf: “Cakewalk!”

Jon Heder: “And singing! Yeah, that’s true, but…”

Now that you are here in Hawaii are you going to do any surfing?

Jon Heder: “No, no, no. I have never surfed. I may try. I’m not saying I’m not interested. I’m more about going under the water. I like to snorkel and scuba, so...”

Shia LaBeouf: “I’ve surfed, yeah, when I was like 13 and then I stopped because work started and insurance won’t let you. And when we get out of here, we stop doing press around 5 pm or so, by then the tide is not something you want to be involved in. And there is really no surf out here, but there is surf at Diamond Head.”

Page 2: On Animated Movies, Their Careers, and Transformers