John Cena is Ferdinand,
both in real life and in the movie.
You're ginormous!
I can't wait to show you to the rest of the guys.
They're going to fertilise the yard.
I enjoyed hearing so many accents in the movie.
How do they change specifically for international audiences?
For example, is Scottish still Scottish?
Actually, that's very interesting
because when we make the movie in English,
we tried to add different flavours of accents
just because it's fun to have diversity,
it's fun to have different ways people talk.
But in each culture, they will dub the movie,
in the countries that don't speak English,
they're going to dub the movie in different languages
and they're going to find what accent would work
for their culture specifically.
I just watched the movie dubbed in Portuguese because I'm from Brazil,
and it's interesting,
the character that's Angus which has a Scottish accent there,
he has a regional accent, he has an accent from the north,
which is really funny and it's really great to see that.
It works the same way,
it's just whatever culture relates to the character the most.
It mustn't have been hard to settle on the cast.
They're really perfect.
What quality did they bring to the characters?
For example, my three favourites,
and could you give a response for each one?
- Sure. - John Cena?
John Cena is Ferdinand,
both in real life and in the movie.
It was interesting because the first time I saw him was, like,
I saw this huge person just walking in and my first impression was,
'Oh my gosh, I don't want to scare this guy out,' because, you know-,
but actually he's so gentle, so he is Ferdinand.
And I think that that's one of the reasons that we got him,
not because of the physicality of him
but because in a truthful way, he is the character,
he embodies the character, he follows the message of the character,
and that's what I wanted.
I want truth in the delivery, I wanted a voice,
because when you're seeing the movie you're not going to see John Cena,
you're just going to see a bull.
But I think whatever Ferdinand has to say and talk
needs to be from the heart, needs to be something that we believe,
and John Cena's the perfect cast for that.
Kate McKinnon?
We have this great character called Lupe
that's counter to Ferdinand, it's a contrast.
It's like Ferdinand's best buddy in the story
and he needed somebody that's contrasting,
somebody that would be much more out there,
somebody that will have a lot of comedy experience,
and Kate McKinnon came on board to do Lupe and she's fantastic.
She's similar to her things,
in what she does in stand-up comedy or on TV.
She brings a spark and a wit to the character that is unparalleled.
I could make maybe three Ferdinand movies with her
because she has so many great ideas and she adlibs so well
that she adds so much to the story, and it's a great contrast.
You have this gentle giant and you have this crazy little goat,
and it's always fun to play them together.
David Tennant?
Well, David Tennant, he is amazing
and Angus is one of the most endearing characters in the story,
not only because of the accent, because his accent is brilliant
and it's great, it's natural, he's from Scotland so I wanted that idea,
but he's such a bro.
He comes in, he brings all his heart and soul into the story,
and he was able to create a character that's at the same time funny, fun,
but has a lot of heart.
One of my favourite scenes in the movie
is when the two of them sit down
and they talk about how they can help each other out,
and it's such a heartfelt sequence that, you know, he's amazing.
I loved the hedgehog trio.
It kind of reminded me of the penguins in Madagascar.
Did you take any inspiration from that?
No, not really. (laughter)
I do love the penguins in Madagascar
but I'm not that familiar with them to be fully inspired by it.
The hedgehogs, it was like a fun play with the situation.
You have Una, Dos and Cuatro
and then there's the mystery about, where's Tres?
And we loved that idea, we loved to play with that thought
that they're seeing themselves as lesser than the others
because they're small.
Nobody knows what they are,
because you see little hedgehogs and you think
that it's little rats with porcupine-,
it's like a hybrid, kind of, so he always mistreats them.
So that's why we gave them numbers,
because they even make them feel just more left off to the side,
and they have to overcome that in the story.