Actor Ben Kingsley is laidback and loving it
Ben Kingsley believes in immersing himself in a film role, but his character in a new animated movie sees him take a more laidback approach, writes Kavita Daswani
On the first day that Ben Kingsley lent his voice to stop-motion animation film , the distinguished thespian tried out various positions to see which would work best for him. First, the conventional approach: standing at the microphone. Then he sat. Neither worked. And then he thought of lying down.
"That released the voice," the actor says in his crisp, resonant tones. "The voice was released when I was relaxed, it wasn't pushed in any way - there was a grandeur and a confidence. Although semi-reclining like that did inhibit me from any physical gestures!"
In Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi's , Kingsley lends his distinctive voice to Archibald Snatcher, the villain of the town of Cheesebridge whose sole ambition in life is to annihilate its population of Boxtrolls - harmless subterranean creatures who are clothed in boxes.
Based on writer-illustrator Alan Snow's quirky , the Victorian-era fantasy comedy is packed with a raft of odd characters such as cabbageheads, and features catapults made from women's frilly underwear. The 544-page novel's rambling tale had to be condensed into a streamlined family film that takes as its central theme the evil intentions of Snatcher against the ugly but cute creatures protecting Eggs, an orphaned human boy they raised from babyhood.
The creation of Laika - the Hillsboro, Oregon-based animation studio behind (2009) and (2012) - boasts a star-studded voice cast which includes 15-year-old Isaac Hempstead-Wright ( ) as Eggs and 16-year-old Elle Fanning as the feisty Winnie who Eggs teams up with to save his non-human "family" from Snatcher.
But there's little doubt the 70-year-old Kingsley is the top pick for Annable and Stacchi, as well as for Laika's president and CEO, Knight.
"If you find in any character his absolutely primal gesture, and locate that as an actor and understand it and can interpret it, it is an absolute joy," Kingsley says.
"That primal gesture can be deeply life enhancing, and that's a joy to play. Or it can be constructive, or destructive. But once you find it, all the doors open. [Snatcher] has a desperate need to be accepted, to join a club that will not have him. That's the worst thing you can do to that guy. It's about rejection, cloaked in vanity and class struggle," the actor says.
Kingsley was attracted to the nuances, humour and pathos in the script. "If I come across a script of any genre that doesn't resonate with me, with what I consider to be a brilliant map of human behaviour, which is what a script should be, I let someone else do it," he says.
It was the visuals that sold the project to him. "I loved the drawings and the sketches and that amazing hat Snatcher wears, and those awful expressions he makes. It was beyond my expectations. It was absolutely beautiful," he says.
"We think of animation as a classically two-dimensional process. What I thrilled to in this was witnessing an event entirely made by the human hand - the costumes, every little gesture, linked by human hands, not a computer or machine, and that comes off the screen."
is Stacchi's third outing as a director and Annable's film directorial debut (his three previous credits were for video games). Having previously worked as a storyboard artist on and , Annable thought he knew what it would be like to direct "one of these things" but the job turned out to be more complex. "As a story artist, you've figured it all out, it's all about the genius of the drawings," he says. "But as a director, there are so many more decisions, and the movie evolves so much more from that point. So many factors get involved, each shot keeps transforming and turning into something you can't predict. You know what you want the film to feel like, but it becomes its own identity at the end of it."
Kingsley, long considered one of the finest actors of his generation, is relatively new to voice work. Having recorded for a video game ( ) he clearly relishes that actors are being given new leases of life in different media.
"Lots and lots of doors are opening. There is animation, high-end commercials, even the video game world," he says. "Actors can now diversify, and can join this amazing process. And I have a good filter system. What gets through is pretty good."
In this new adaptation of British author Rudyard Kipling's classic work, Kingsley will play Bagheera, the black panther. An actor who makes the most of his voice, he had some suggestions for Favreau regarding his character.
"The book was … based on British India, and I'm somewhat acquainted with that history," says Kingsley, referring to his Oscar-winning turn in (1982). "I said to Jon, 'Given that Bagheera is an Indian animal, should he have a British Indian accent, like a brigadier?" - and at that, Kingsley segues into a flawless rendition of it.
More generally, he says there's a truth that he has learned about his craft that he likes to pass on to younger actors. "I tell them, 'Never lose touch with the fact that you are a storyteller, that you must always serve the story with urgency, not your ego. Then, it will work'."
The Boxtrolls