Disney provided my travel and accommodations during this event. All opinions expressed are my own.
Julie Bowen. If I had to choose any women to sit down and talk with it would be her. She is hilarious and not only that she is super sweet and friendly. This past May during the Planes Fire and Rescue Event I, along with 24 other bloggers, actually got the chance to sit down with Julie Bowen and chat with her about things like family, shoes, Modern Family and how it was to play the voice of Dipper.
The moment Julie Bowen walked through the door of the restaurant you could tell we were all in for a great time. She is so energetic and funny! Chatting with her was just like chatting with a friend that you had known for years. Planes Fire and Rescue was actually the first full-length animated film that Julie had done a voice-over on but you wouldn’t know it because she sounded like an absolute pro.
Julie really brings the character of Dipper to life and brings a whole new element to Disney Planes Fire and Rescue. I really couldn’t imagine anyone other than Julie Bowen voicing the part. We all had a chance to ask Julie a few questions and here is a snippet of some of my favorite parts.
Is this your first time playing an animated character?
For a movie, yes. I did like a couple little quickie things. My kids, they like the voice thing. So when I got an opportunity to do this, I saw how much mileage I got off Scooby-Doo. I couldn’t believe how much mileage I got from them. They were like worshipping me. So this, like I mean I’m genuinely excited to show off to my children.
How was it to do animated versus Modern Family?
Oh. So different. So different. I am not a trained voice actor. I’m keenly aware of my weaknesses and that may be because there’s something that obscure or high, there’s no like I think we might have seen your boob there. You know what I mean? It’s just your voice, and if you aren’t getting across clearly, the humor, the message, the real sentiment, you can’t deny it. You can’t go like, yeah, but she looks really big in that shot.
Or your hair looks nice, so maybe no one will notice. So I was keenly aware of it. Luckily they are perfectionists and they are so pro that they very quickly figured out that the best way to work with me was just let me go. And then some poor editor had to sit somewhere going, oh my god. I mean I was leaping around, swearing. The original Dipper had quite a mouth on her. But to get to the like sassiness of the way that she thinks, I kind of needed to spout some garbage.
Do you watch the film first and then voice it?
They draw it. It’s kind of like what you would imagine as far as there’s a rough sketch copy. Like pencil drawing and then sometimes it’s more than that. It’s the pencil drawing against the backdrop because I guess the backdrops are more static, or those are painted in. I’m not exactly sure how that happens. But what I see is just mostly some loose drawings in the very beginning.
Moving around and kind of marking the major things. Then I come back like six months later and they’re drawn more. And the cool thing is, six months or eight months later, they’ve taken all that spouting that I did in the booth, and running around and sweating, and they incorporate it into the character. And now they’ve started to draw her movement and her mouth and everything to fit that. And that was very cool to see. Somebody had to work very hard.
Are you ever with other actors in the booth or always by yourself?
No. I was always by myself. Like when I did Scooby-Doo it was in a room with a bunch of people. But, but those are serialized. You know, it’s weekly or however they do it. So they’ve got a much faster production piece. I don’t think you can afford to bring one person in at a time. No, I was completely alone. But luckily Dane Cook, I mean all theirs was done. It was completely done. So I could hear him, I could hear Ed Harris, I could hear everybody else.
How intensive was the process for the animators compared to your work on Modern Family?
This was so great and short, and even though I sweat a lot and get really anxious whenever I had to go in, I didn’t have to go in that many times. I think but because Bob was so great and they just let me go, instead of trying to get the line. Stop. Let’s get the line. They just were like, just do whatever you want and we’ll tell you if we need something else. So they had a lot more material probably than they needed.
And so I just went in to like polish up bits, or change it for legal reasons or whatever. So, it’s kind of hard to believe it’s actually coming out as a movie. It seemed like a fun place to go where I didn’t have to wear makeup. Modern Family is you get there- it’s a process, but I’ve been doing TV for a long time so you’re getting there six a.m. and somebody makes you look like, you know, a much better version of you. And by the time you get to the stage at seven thirty in the morning it’s been hours and it’s like go team. This was very different.
Q : Did you audition or did they just send this?
No. They contacted the people that represent me and asked me if I would do it. And I was like, oh yeah, yes I will. But I was deeply familiar with the land of Cars. Deeply, deeply. Like intimately. So I knew…I knew what the world was. It wasn’t like, there’s a lot of worlds I don’t know that are older than my boys or something, you know, that I would, I’m not sure what that world is yet. But I knew what the Planes world was gonna be kind of like. So I embraced it wholeheartedly.
Disney Planes Fire and Rescue opens in theaters everywhere July 18 so be sure to go check it out. It’s a great film for the whole family.