Since the time they were children, Manolo, Joaquin, and Maria have been three best friends, however their friendship is tested when both Manolo, a hopelessly romantic musician, and Joaquin, an acclaimed soldier, fall in love with Maria.
Along the journey for Maria’s love, Manolo encounters the devious spirit of the dead, Xibalba, who convinces Manolo to trade his human life in order to be with Maria in the land of the dead. But Xibalba tricks Manolo, leaving him separated from his one true love. Throughout the course of ‘The Book of Life’, Manolo must overcome his own limits and the expectations of his family in order to be reunited with Maria. Here he discovers the true nature of love. Manolo is taught to love his family, his heritage, his community, and most importantly, to love himself.
Channing Tatum participated in an intimate press conference at the Crosby Hotel. Read what he had to say about his new film below.
Q: What was the most challenging part of transitioning from a live action actor to an animated voice actor?
A: I guess just the letting go of, ya know, the responsibility of all of him, I guess. It’s freeing at the end of the day. You just sort of let go and trust your director, Jorge. He’s the whole reason why I signed onto this. I didn’t even read the script first, which is generally how it works, you read the script and then and go “Oh I like this. I think I want to meet the director and see his vision for it.” And instead he just said he wanted to come and pitch me a story, and instead he told me two stories. He told me one very personal story that I won’t share here, but it moved me almost to tears. And I knew that if this movie had any amount of that in it, it was just going to be truly alive and emotional and real and beautiful. And then he told me the story of ‘The Book of Life’ and I just thought, I was like, man, this is punk rock and cool and I would love to go down this rabbit hole. You know, there’s no wrong answers when you’re doing an animated movie. You could be like “Blah blah blahha” and they’re like, “Use that!” They’ll just create something in the world that it fits and you don’t know, it might be in the movie so you just kind of let go.
Q: How was it immersing yourself in Mexican culture for the film? Because that’s something we don’t usually see in Hollywood, recognition of other cultures.
A: Yeah, I really relied very heavily on my own Mexican culture and heritage. No I’m kidding that was joke, a bad joke. I think I had always heard of the Day of the Dead, but as an American kid from the south I obviously didn’t really know anything about the Mexican culture and this was an education. And I’m not saying this for this, it is something I’m going to adopt into my own. I’m not a religious person, but I am a very spiritual person. I think the idea of life and then whatever comes after. The idea of when someone moves onto whatever is after, if the people that are still in this world treat them as if they’re there. Cook them their favorite meals, serve their drinks that they used to like, if they like apple juice, or tell their stories or jokes, or whatever it is. It’s like they’re there. They’re really there. They do exist. I just think that’s one of the most beautiful traditions that I’ve heard of.
Q: Manolo and Joaquin go through so many lengths to show Maria they care about her. Have you ever done anything similar? What have you done to show?
A: I’ve never really done anything. No. Yeah, look I’m married so I tried to do as much as I can of that stuff. I mean I danced with my wife for an entire three months before we actually, ya know, started to date, I guess. And we’ve been together nine and a half years so I’m sure I’ve done a lot of that stuff. I haven’t fought monsters, but yeah singing and dancing and stuff.
Q: I thought it was so beautiful how the movie captivated death and the way that children could understand it. Being a father yourself, how important was that storyline for you?
A: Yeah, I mean, when I heard it was about the Mexican day of the dead, I was like “How are they going to pull that off as a kid’s movie?” And I think it’s such a beautiful way of looking at it. It doesn’t deal with it as death, as in like they’re gone, and that’s why it’s literally the land of the remembered. They don’t go away, ya know, they can really still be with you. And I think, ya know, some people will maybe be afraid to breach those issues with their children, but I don’t know I think it’s a really safe and beautiful way to talk about it if you feel like you want to do that. Because, you know, it’s going to happen eventually, and they’re going to have to, I guess, learn about it. Better to learn about it in a fiction world than in real life, first.
Q: When you started doing the voicing of the character, were you able to see the animation and look and feel of what your character was going to be?
A: Yeah there was nothing animated yet but there was a lot of I guess character art and world art. Jorge’s wife actually does a lot of the art in the movie. It was just so alive. It looked like a magical piñata burst open and Mexican culture fell out, or Latin culture fell out. The first character picture that I saw, he had a way bigger mustache, which I’m very upset that he didn’t have as big of a mustache as he did. But in Joaquin’s mind, his mustache is way bigger than what’s actually there.
Q: Did they incorporate any of you movement?
A: I don’t know if they – I’m sure the animators. They film you while you’re doing the recording and you know maybe some of the stuff I was doing fighting wise they put it in. I don’t remember all the stuff I was doing. In those crazy recording you just sort of, very insanely, vomit out a bunch of like stuff. And the idea of someone who fights saying their own name is hilarious to me and like the funniest thing in the world. So that was not in the script, so we just kind of found on the day. That’s what’s so amazing about the animating world, is that it’s such a fluid process, I guess, that sometimes they don’t even know where the idea is going to come from, it just sort of materializes, ya know. For live action movies things, I would say probably are a little bit more planned out because the day starts and you’re just burning money, it’s the same probably for animated movie, it’s just a lot of different moving parts in how the things materialize.
Q: In the movie we see Joaquin learn one of the biggest lessons, which is to be a hero you have to be selfless. And I wanted to know is there a time in your career where you had to be selfish and then learned to be selfless?
A: Yeah, I do remember, actually when I was going to do Jumpstreet I had worked with Chris Pratt and I looked at him, and I was about to go do Jumpstreet, And I looked at Chris Pratt and I go, “ Man, I don’t know how to tell you this but I’m about to go do a movie that I think you would be way better for.” And he was like, “Wait really?” And we had a conversation about it. But you know I guess that was my selfish because I went and did the movie. And the selfless side of it, you do have to, when you’re on a movie and telling the story, I think one the things I’ve only learned, probably in the past three years, four years, is that the story not about – you’re not the story. The story is the story. The movie is the story. And I think when I was, a lot of young actors and a lot of actors in general, they only worry about their character. They only look at who their character is and what they can do to make it bigger or better or whatever that is, instead of trying to understand why and how your character fits and services and is a part of the larger story. Cause it’s not a story without a bunch of different parts of character and plot and so on. You’re just a little piece of a larger tapestry. And I think that if people would be a little bit more giving, that not to make it all about themselves, that it helps the process, like a lot, when you just go, “Alright, maybe this scene’s not about me. Maybe this scene should be about someone else or something else.”
Q: This was one of the themes in the movie: Parents sometimes push their children to do what they feel is in their child’s best interest, but not actually. I want to know if you have ever experienced that. And if children are faced with that dilemma, how would you suggest they handle that? How do you think children should navigate that and still maintain a level of respect for their parents?
A: Communication is probably the greatest tool that you can use there and that’s a hard thing to have, between and a parent. Not just an adult but a parent. Someone that is completely responsible for you. And I’m a parent now and, ya know, she’s still pretty young and I still feel so responsible. And pretty much her only job is to get up everyday and I just want her to eat. Simply just eat. But, I don’t know. I haven’t made it quite, I’m not going to have a great, perfect answer for it – because I haven’t quite made it to that part of my parenthood just yet. But I can only speculate, I think as a human you maybe want for someone that you’re responsible for to not make the same mistakes as you or to be better than you are, be greater than you are as a person because you feel like because you’ve experienced something in life you can protect them from or whatnot. Or want them to be able to supersede you. And I think it’s going to be a really interesting walk for me to have to take, because I’m a very competitive person, and I got to take myself out of her life in that manner and try and let her just find her own way. And I know it’s really easy to say, it’s super easy to say that, so I don’t know. I really wish I had a better answer, but I’m just going to feel it out as I go. I guess that’s all you really can do. And as a kid I remember, because I played football and my dad played football, and I wanted to be good because he was good and so on, I think those are lessons that you have to learn too. Kids have to sort of learn that if they can’t just hear what you got to do you to do, not just what they want you to do. They have to really like go and see if that’s something that they want to do. They shouldn’t just want to do it because their parents did it, or they shouldn’t not want do it because their parent want to do it. They should really go and try and just explore it. And it should really be okay if they don’t want to do something. I remember I was in martial arts and there was a part where, there was time where I wanted to quit and I didn’t want to go to my class that night. She was like – my mom was like, “Look you can quit, you can quit if you want, but you’ve said that you were going to go to this class so you have to go to this class. And then afterwards you withdraw if you would like, but you stay and honor what you said you were going to do. And then if that’s your choice you can do that as well.” So I think it’s really just making, just because someone doesn’t want to do something, you can’t just let them out of a commitment that they’ve sort of done. And I ended up staying in it. It was just that I really didn’t want to come in from playing and go to a class. It was really smart of my mom to give me the choice, that if I really did want to quit, but I had to honor what I was going to do or what I said I was going to do.
Q: How much are you thinking about, in between the adult movies you’re making, making films like this one that your little girl will be able to watch before she’s eighteen?
A: There’s nothing almost at my – Step Up. She’s going to end up watching a lot, it’s going to be her punishment. I don’t know, it’s not a conscious decision. If some great stories come along that are appropriate for her. I’m not going and looking for that type of thing. It really whatever comes across that is really just a great story. I just really love stories and characters and things I think that I can service maybe better than anything else that’s going on. But I think things in life definitely persuade you. Things that you’re doing inspire you and creatively turn you on. I can feel the sway that it’s had on the other creative sort of things that I’ve sort of got on. It definitely changes you, having a child.
Q: What was it like playing a Latino character and what did you learn from it?
A: That was a conversation that I had with Jorge, probably too late, because I loved the character and I loved the story. And then it dawned on me, I don’t think he wants me to have Spanish accent does he? And I asked him that and he was like, “No.”, thank god. So I think it really was for me living in the world of this world. It’s obviously a very magical land, it’s not exactly, it’s not Mexico, it’s San An El, which is sort of a fantasy town. And we’re little marionette type wooden looking people. So I don’t really know if I can speak to what it’s like to play a Latin character and I didn’t really try and portray that because we really did want it to feel like not everyone had a Spanish sort of feeling, persona, voice, or anything. So to give it a little bit more accessibility, I think that was smart. So you didn’t feel like I could only connect to this if I was Latin. But it’s cool, I’ve learned a lot about that tradition specifically. I mean, I still don’t know Spanish, but it’s cool. You get to really learn a lot about a different, doing what I get to do, you get to drop into all these really interesting little worlds, so it was fun. Hopefully, I’ll get to make another one and I’ll speak more Spanish and I’ll get to sing.
Q: So being your first animated film, would you say looking back on your whole career would you say this has been your biggest challenge?
A: I wish I could say it – look animated movies are like vacation for actors. Because, look, you don’t have to work twelve hours a day. On a live action movie set you show up and you’re generally there for about twelve to fifteen hours. I get to show up in my sweats and Zoe jokes around she’s like, “I don’t even brush my teeth when I go in. I just go right in.” And you sit in like a sound stage and there really aren’t any wrong answers. When I say that like I could have spoken French and he would have been like, “Maybe that’ll work! I don’t know. We’re not wasting time here because we have enough.” It was play. It was a really playful thing. It was nice to kind of give the reigns to somebody else and really let them run and then come back and be like, “Alright this is what we’ve got so far, let’s keep building.” So you build some more and then they go away and they work on it, and massage it, and build it more, and then they come back. And it’s sort of this really departmentalized piecemield sort of experience with a bunch of different people all sort of working at the same thing. And I would love to do it again. I would love to. I mean I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it. I really do though wish I could have been in the same room with like Diego and Zoe, that would have been a lot of fun, so ya know, next time.
Q: At the same time this movie is coming out, you’re filming Magic Mike XXL and women are going crazy. Does your wife prefer to have you doing things like this or do you guys ever talk about that?
A: She doesn’t prefer it. She actually loves Magic Mike, believe it or not. It is weird because my job in that is to do things wives probably wouldn’t want their husbands doing. But, I don’t know, she’s just cool like that. Our two choreographers on the movie are old Janette dancers so they all know each other and are like really really good friends, so I work it out with them and then I go and show Jenna for the approval. But she loves stories and movies too. She’s an actress and she goes and does things that probably other husbands wouldn’t want their wives going doing. It’s a nice trade off. It’s an interesting thing that actors have to deal with, but ya know, we’re ten years into it now so it’s kind of old hat now, we’ve moved past it. I still don’t like seeing her kiss other people, but that’s just the way it goes. She just really wants me to be happy and same with her. If she had to do some part and gets offered a movie that is going to be hard for me to watch, ya know, I don’t want to tell her that she can’t do it. It just really has to line up with something creatively and emotionally that she wanted to do and why she would want to do it. I think for us both, we really just – if I wasn’t doing Magic Mike, if I was just doing some movie about strippers, she might be like, “Why do you want to do that?” But it started off as a story that I really loved and it has grown into something that even love more. Because it’s a weird world that I experienced in my real life, and I found it wildly interesting, even though it was an dangerous kind of dark world, it was an experience that I would trade because I luckily got out of it, unscaved. I think it’s just a part of me telling some part of my life and she understands that so it’s fun.
“The Book Of Life” is now playing.
-Elise Cruz
