Film: David Soren interview
The film director talks to Holly Cozens about his animation flick, Turbo
Where does an idea like Turbo begin?
“There were two inspirations. The first being my six-year old son, who has been obsessed with all things fast, playing with his little race cars, zooming them around the living room. Then there’s a tomato plant in the front yard which these snails completely demolished. It wasn’t long before I started to connect the dots between super fast stuff in my living room and these slow moving creatures in the yard and started to come up with the idea for a snail who is obsessed with speed.”
This is your first feature film and to get a voice cast including Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti and Samuel L Jackson must be somewhat of a dream…
“When we first cast the movie I was constantly pitching myself, it’s really ridiculous how stacked this cast is. To be able to go and make offers to them and for them to say yes, it’s a dream come true absolutely. They were all incredibly easy. Ryan, when he sat down said to me ‘I can’t wait to be a snail’ and he’d just been named People Magazine’s ‘Sexiest Man of the Year’ a week earlier so I was dubious he’d say yes!”
What are the many challenges of directing a voice cast?
“For starters, it’s hard to get them all together. At one point we got Paul and Ryan together early on. They’re brothers in the movie and we wanted to help them flush out that relationship and that dynamic but for the most part you’re dealing with each of them individually. My challenge is really to paint the picture of what the scene is, what the context is and give them the eyes, to see what they need to do to create a believable performance.”
How difficult is it for the central characters to have no arms in forms
of communication?
“Initially I experimented with some drawings of some arms and quickly abandoned that idea because it was creepy. It was challenging, there’s no question about it, but in a way liberating to force ourselves to come up with more creative ways of having them emote and physically get around. Thematically, the movie is about embracing your limitations and that was what we had to do with them and it makes it more original as a result.”
How would you describe Turbo as a movie?
“I would describe it as an underdog movie. My favourite aspect of the movie is there’s this dual brother relationship that happens when a snail meets a taco salesman. They both have these outlandish dreams and they both have these brothers who think they’re foolish. Everyone out there from a kid to an adult has dreams, whether they’re fulfilled or unfulfilled, and as a result I think it’s universally relatable.”
Turbo is in cinemas nationwide on 18 October
