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During my trip for the Planes #FireAndRescueEvent, celebrating the coming release of Planes: Fire & Rescue, I was able to sit down with Julie Bowen, voice of Planes character “Dipper“. Along with several other bloggers, I was able to sit in a cozy, out of the way cafe and chit chat with her like it was just another day. Julie was not only gracious about visiting with us, but she was hilarious. It was a great surprise to see that she was just as rambunctious and entertaining in person as she is on screen as Claire of Modern Family.
After taking a minute to say hello to many of the writers individually (and let us gawk at her amazing shoes) she dove right into asking how we liked Planes: Fire & Rescue…
JULIE: It was good? You liked it?
Yes, we did.
JULIE : Well you have to say that to me anyhow. (room laughter) I haven’t seen it, but I know that it’s gonna hit the sweet spot in my house. With three boys. Four with my husband, too. We obviously don’t always go on the Princess Alley, although we will visit, we will visit Frozen. Frozen’s all over my house right now.
Is this your first time playing an animated character?
JULIE : For a movie, yes. I did like a couple little quickie things. A lot of it for my kids – like Scooby-Doo – because they’ve never seen Modern Family. They don’t want to see me on a screen that much. But they like the voice thing. So when I got an opportunity to do this, I saw how much mileage I got off Scooby-Doo. I couldn’t believe how much mileage I got from [my kids]. They were like worshipping me. So I’m genuinely excited to show off to my children.
We all did a [voice] clip of one of your scenes.
JULIE : Oh, you did?! It’s kind of nerve-wracking. ‘Cause there’s nothing there. Also my big fear is like you’re in the booth, and then there’s a glass thing. And they’re… And this is what I’m analyzing, like. It’s really bad. Is it too late to re-cast this? [LAUGHTER] And so day one I went in [and said]…”you guys, when you’re just chitchatting, even if it’s about lunch, the mic is open”. Because I’m in here dying a thousand tiny deaths, and they’re like- “…you want pickles on it? Pickles? I’m fine.” [LAUGHTER]
But once we got that out of the way then I could relax a little, because it’s just that silent alone in a room thing.
How was it to do animated versus Modern Family?
So different. So different. I am not a trained voice actor. It’s just your voice, and if you aren’t getting across clearly, the humor, the message, the real sentiment, you can’t deny it. You can’t go like, yeah, but she looks really big in that shot. Or your hair looks nice, so maybe no one will notice. So I was keenly aware of it. Luckily they are perfectionists and they are so pro that they very quickly figured out that the best way to work with me was just let me go. And then some poor editor had to sit somewhere going, “oh my god”. I mean I was leaping around, swearing. The original Dipper had quite a mouth on her. But, to get to the like sassy-ness of the way that she thinks, I kind of needed to spout some garbage.
Do you watch the film first and then voice it?
JULIE : They draw. There’s a rough sketch copy. What I see is just mostly some loose drawings in the very beginning. Moving around and, and kind of marking the major things. Then I come back like six months later and they’re drawn more. And the cool thing is, six months or eight months later, they’ve taken all that spouting that I did in the booth, and running around and sweating, and they incorporate it into the character. And now they’ve started to draw her- her movement and her mouth and everything to fit that. And that was very cool to see. Somebody had to work very hard.
Are you ever with other actors in the booth or always by yourself?
JULIE : No. I was always by myself. But luckily Dane Cook — all theirs was done. It was completely done. So I could hear him, I could hear Ed Harris, I could hear everybody else.
How intensive was the process for the animators compared to your work on Modern Family?
JULIE: This was so great and short. Even though I sweat a lot and get really anxious whenever I had to go in, I didn’t have to go in that many times. Because Bob was so great and they just let me go, instead of trying to …”let’s get the line. Stop. Let’s get the line”. They just were like, “just do whatever you want and we’ll tell you if we need something else”. So they had a lot more material probably than they needed.
It’s kind of hard to believe it’s actually coming out as a movie. It seemed like a fun place to go where I didn’t have to wear makeup. [LAUGHTER] So yeah, Modern Family is you get there- it’s a process, but I’ve been doing TV for a long time so you’re getting there six a.m. and somebody makes you look like, you know, a much better version of you. And, by the time you get to the stage at seven thirty in the morning, it’s been hours and you’re like, “go team”. This was very different.
JULIE: I knew what the Planes world was gonna be kind of like. So I embraced it wholeheartedly.
I mainly needed to leap around.Which was great, because you can’t do that on camera. I actually took my shoes off and would do a lot of jumping around. It’s funny, because Ty Burrell, who just came off of two big animated films back to back, he needs to sit in a chair – I don’t think he’ll mind me telling this. He goes, but he sits and has the microphone here and hands like this, and doesn’t move. And it works for him. Everything he wants comes through his voice. And I can’t. Which is just different.
I can’t even sit still right now. I would run around and like scream and yell, and then do whatever it is I needed to do. Especially in scenes where like, you know, we’re flying over fires and we’re putting them out and you’re like yelling. It’s incredible.
Planes: Fire & Rescue hits theaters July 18th
You can find more information and interactive fun with Planes online:
PLANES: FIRE & RESCUE ONLINE
https://www.facebook.com/DisneyPlanes
https://twitter.com/DisneyPictures (#FireAndRescue)
https://www.youtube.com/user/DisneyMovies
http://movies.disney.com/planes/
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