By Courtney Potter
Readers of Katherine Applegate’s Newbery Medal-winning book The One and Only Ivan already know it to be a heartwarming tale of friendship, hope, and the place one’s heart calls home. And now, thanks to Disney’s brand-new film—told through an incredible hybrid of live-action and CGI—audiences all over will learn about a very special gorilla and his equally special friends when it premieres exclusively on Disney+ this week.
Helmed by acclaimed British director Thea Sharrock (Me Before You, BBC’s The Hollow Crown), the film follows Ivan (voice of Sam Rockwell)—a 400-pound silverback gorilla who shares a communal habitat in a suburban shopping mall with Stella the elephant (voice of Angelina Jolie), Bob the dog (voice of Danny DeVito), and various other animals… all under the watchful eye of the mall’s circus attraction owner, Mack (Bryan Cranston). Ivan has few memories of the jungle where he was born, but when a baby elephant named Ruby (voice of Brooklynn Prince) arrives, it touches something deep within him—and he begins to question his life, where he comes from, and where he ultimately wants to be.
D23 recently sat down for a virtual chat with Sharrock, who gave us a peak “under the big top” for some behind-the-scenes tidbits—including the surprisingly Disney-related moment she found out she’d be directing the film…
D23: This is your first Disney film—so we’re curious: What was your first thought when you found out you’d gotten the job?
Thea Sharrock (TS): “Well the funny thing is—believe it or not—I was actually sitting in a movie theater at the time, [and] I was watching Disney’s [2017 live-action] Beauty and the Beast with one of my kids! And I saw my phone ringing; it was obviously on silent, but I was waiting to hear, and I knew it would come that day. So I’m sitting there and the number comes up and I knew that this was the call that was going to tell me whether or not I was going to have the opportunity. So I scooted out and took the call outside. And I had quite a muted reaction in that sense, because I was really aware of where I was … but I remember how utterly elated I was. And there was something just magical about the fact that I was sitting in that in the middle of watching Beauty and the Beast. And then I skedaddled back into the cinema and I told my son, and then he did scream in the middle of the movie! It was so sweet! I was really proud and excited, and it just felt like an enormous privilege—and it has done ever since.”
D23: That’s amazing! As to the actual process of making the movie, what was the biggest technological challenge you faced—and how did you work through it?
TS: “On the one hand there was a huge technical challenge of just not knowing what all of this technology could do and what I had to do to make it work. But I never got nervous about that, because I was surrounded by such a brilliant team. And [Disney] is so careful [about] sharing all of their knowledge and making sure that you feel you have all the information that you need to make the decisions as a director that you need to make. So I never felt worried or scared. It wasn’t that—it was just new and big. But actually, the more I think about it, the more I realize that probably the biggest challenge is that for months and months of post-production, you are looking at unfinished shots. And you have to just live with a huge leap of faith that it will ultimately look like how you’ve now seen it. But there were hundreds of shots that were never going to come in until right at the end of the process. The early ones came in and we started to get very excited when we saw things… So in a way that was the hardest part—because like I said, you’d have to sort of travel in hope and trust that it was going to be where you wanted it to be. It just didn’t look like it now.”
D23: Do you have any favorite memories from the process? Or scenes you’d really looked forward to shooting?
TS: “There was so much, it’s the honest truth… I realized that I carried with me throughout the process, in particular, three or four scenes—all of which had Ivan in. And they were the goodbye scenes. [For instance], I knew we were on the right track when, even just through rehearsal performance… I had actors who were either being the puppeteer for Bob the dog or the physical presence of Ivan, [so] the very first time I had them physically acting out this particular scene and we could all hear Danny [DeVito, voice of Bob] and Sam [Rockwell, voice of Ivan] saying lines… [when] we looked at that together, I remember turning towards my lead animator and he had a tear in his eye at that point… But all of this is leading up to, actually, when Mack [played by Bryan Cranston] has a special scene with Ivan toward the end of the film. That was really very, very special. And Bryan was just incredible on that day—it was a real pleasure to be with him and to help him get to where we got to.”
D23: Anything else you’d like the readers of D23.com to know about The One and Only Ivan?
TS: “I think—I hope—that this is exactly the moment for a movie like this. I feel that we all have gone through and are going through a really hard time together, and that this movie is a shared experience. That [it] gives us a little bit of hope, a little bit of a heartwarming feeling, a feeling that we’re all in it together—and that kindness can go a long way.”
Look for The One and Only Ivan beginning Friday, August 21, only on Disney+!
