*Approximately 46.3 million households in the United States own a dog, but it’s the animals themselves who take center stage in the new animated film “The Secret Life of Pets.”
“The Secret Life of Pets” serves as an adventurous and humorous answer to the question of what domesticated animals do while their owners are away. It was that initial curiosity that jump-started the idea for the film by Illumination Entertainment CEO Chris Meledandri.
Co-writer Ken Daurio remembers Meledandri “had this idea of an owner saying goodbye to their dog, leaving the house, and as soon as the owner was gone, the dog emptied out its dog dish and went to the fridge to see what was there,” a sequence that a cat named Chloe carries out in the film.
While the film offers depictions of a vast range of different pets — including a bird, a guinea pig and a fish — co-director Yarrow Cheney said, “There is a quality about dogs that lends themselves to telling a story about them.”
“Kevin Hart, who has this big explosive voice coming out of this little cute bunny, just felt like it would be instantly appealing and fun,” director Chris Renaud said.
Hart, as the somewhat explosive leader of an underground gang of animals, said that he tried to create a complex, appealing character with Snowball.
“First of all, I’m a little crazy. Being that I got to play a villain, I said, ‘How do I make this villain a little complex? How do I make him full of levels and layers?’ So I made him insecure, I made him emotional, I made him angry, but all in all he’s just a person that wanted love at the end,” Hart explained. “So I think to make your character likable is what’s most important. Because when people like you they root for you, bad guy or no bad guy.”
Throughout his career, Hart has played every role from an aspiring pimp to a professional best man to a car washer faking his way through prison-preparation training for Will Ferrell.
This past year, he starred in Ride Along 2 and Central Intelligence, which opened to strong reviews and a huge box office.
Hart owes his success to a lot of hard work and humor. Critics have already said that his character in The Secret Life of Pets lives up to his comedic standard.
Like Hart, co-stars like Lake Bell, who plays Chloe, were inspired by the images of their characters and “threw some stuff at the wall.”
Bell added, “It’s sort of the easiest job you could ask for. It’s super fulfilling, because all you have to do is show up and ostensibly just play around and be sort of goofy, and a year later these amazing craftsmen create this beautiful piece of animation.”
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