We caught up with The Good Dinosaur stars Sam Elliott (voice of Butch), Anna Paquin (voice of Ramsey) and AJ Buckley (voice of Nash), who portray a family of cow-herding T-Rexes and who could not be more impeccably cast. They told us about the honor that is appearing in a Disney-Pixar film, Elliot shared his first memory of the fabled studio’s work and the joyous effort of finding their inner T-Rex.
As you see in The Good Dinosaur trailer, the story follows what happens when a young dinosaur gets swept away from his family home and has to find his way back, with the help of a young boy. Yup, that asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs, in this world it missed. Pixar’s liberty with science is a brilliant stroke of storytelling, and just one reason this talented trio was beyond thrilled to sign up to be in the heartwarming film.
“It doesn’t get any better than that, in terms of the animation world,” Elliot said. “I’ve been in this business for nearly 50 years, and this ranks right up there with ’em, as far as opportunities and things I’ve enjoyed doing.”
“It’s like getting a call that somebody has made the Olympic team,” Buckley added.
For Paquin, she’s already counting the cool mom points before her kids are even old enough to watch it. It’s Pixar, after all!
“I’d always loved Pixar and had been sort of trying to figure out how to get ’em to want to hire me. Then it kind of just happened, and I was like, ‘That’s really cool and awesome.’ It definitely gives me good street cred as a mom, you know? Just like, ‘My mom’s a T-Rex. What’s your mom’s superpower?,’” she said and laughed.
The T-Rex family, led by patriarch Butch, plays a pivotal role in getting Arlo back to his family. See, that’s one of the things that made the roles so appealing for everyone. The emphasis on family that Pixar puts in their film, and also, how you have never seen a T-Rex family previously portrayed like this!
“They’re not typical of any T-Rex that’s ever been represented on film or in animation that I’m privy to. I think that’s part of the charm of this thing. Certainly all of the overriding themes that are involved, and whether it’s the T-Rexes or the kid on his journey, this is about real life,” Elliott admitted.
“There’s a lot of themes in here that ring true for families and parents and children. And there’s great things to be taken away from this. I mean, it’s one thing to be able to entertain people, and we’re blessed ’cause we get to do that, I’ve always felt. But it’s another thing, to inform people, or to provoke people, or make them think.”
When Paquin was first offered the role, she was beside herself by the fact that her T-Rex was going to be just as big and tough as the other two, and not so dainty.
“I want to say that they seemed ever so slightly nervous that I might be offended that they wanted me to be this big T-Rex, that I was like, I was so bracing myself to be like, some little thing like this, that’s really wimpy, ’cause I’m a girl. And I’m like, ‘That’s fantastic,’ and they’re like, ‘Really?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s awesome! I get to be, you know, one of the dudes.”
When it comes to the first movie from Disney or Pixar that resonated with Elliott, he remembers it very well what it was and how it impacted him. “Fantasia. That was the first one for me,” Elliot reported.
“The animation probably more than anything else [is what got me] and the incredible characters. I don’t even remember how old I was, the first time I saw Fantasia, but I still revisit it. Maybe the innocence of all of it, and at the same time it was — it had some really dark elements, you know? Seemed real, on some levels, as fantastical as it might’ve been, real in terms of what it represented to me.”
As if being in a Pixar movie wasn’t enough to get these actors to commit to The Good Dinosaur, then they met writer-director Peter Sohn and knew they couldn’t have been in better hands.
“You meet this guy, that is so enthusiastic, and so specific in his vision, and he has this incredible ability to draw that vision out of the performers, and that’s a real gift of a director. And, as you saw, undoubtedly, through talking to him, he was a very enthusiastic individual, and a very sweet guy, and he was the right guy to do this thing. It may be his first, but it’s certainly not gonna be his last,” Elliott said.
Being a mother to twins helped Paquin get ready for her role as a T-Rex. “My kids have this really cool series of books called How Does a Dinosaur Clean Up His Room? and How Does a Dinosaur Go to School?. It’s basically using dinosaurs to teach important childhood lessons and life skills and morals,” Paquin said. “So there’s quite a lot of that in our household at the moment, and sort of had them for a while.”
For Buckley, Sohn just wanted him to bring a bit of his Justified character (Danny Crow) to a world where the asteroid missed earth and dinosaurs thrived. “He [Sohn] said, ‘I saw your character on Justified, and I loved the sound of your voice. He said, ‘I just want you to do Danny Crow,’ and Danny Crow on Justified was this horrible, like, sociopathic,” said Buckley as he laughed at the irony of such a devilish character making it into a Pixar movie.
He was also more than ready to embody a dinosaur. One could say it was a role he was preparing for his entire life. “I was obsessed with dinosaurs as a kid. I was, many times, grounded for digging up my mom’s beautiful backyard looking for fossils, and using my dad’s toothbrush when I thought I’d found something and needed to gently scrape the dirt off. So, I mean, I was a big fan of dinosaurs, back in the day. Not that I know all of the facts, but I just geeked out, you know. I was ready.”