DIRECTED by Disney veteran Lino DiSalvo and featuring a live-action prologue and epilogue, Playmobil: The Movie is centred on an imaginative young girl named Marla, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, who embarks on an epic journey after her younger brother Charlie (Gabriel Bateman) disappears into the vast and wondrous animated world of Playmobil.
As Marla tries to find her brother in this magical realm, she encounters a memorable cast of Playmobil characters, including friendly food truck driver Del (Jim Gaffigan), dashing secret agent Rex Dasher (Daniel Radcliffe), a modern fairy godmother (Meghan Trainor), and the power-hungry Emperor Maximus (Adam Lambert).
After being reunited with her brother, her adventures teach Marla to break free from her structured adult life, reconnect to her childhood dreams, and enjoy the endless possibilities of her imagination.
In an interview transcript provided by Playmobil’s Malaysian distributor TGV Cinemas, Taylor-Joy spoke about voicing Marla.
Tell us about your character.
“In Playmobil, I play Marla Brenner who is a New York teen ... She is just excited to take a gap year and to explore the world and she has such zest for life.
“Unfortunately, bad circumstances happen and she ends up having to take care of her little brother who ... has an adventurous spirit as well, and they end up [in] a mad adventure where they got sucked into Playmobil-land and she has to find her little brother.
“So, it’s a lovely story [about] them, courage and family love but also funny. I love every inch of it.”
Were you excited to play the role of a strong female protagonist?
“You know, what attracted Marla to me was just her as an individual. She is incredibly heroic ... When I was proposed that she was going to be the first archetype of a female knight in the world of toys, I felt connected to that.
“As an individual, she is also really neurotic and a bit OCD about stuff, and has this dorky quality to her that I really like. And I think [I enjoyed juggling] this heroism and this strength and courage with the more [dorkish] qualities about her ...
“And it’s fun to do that with your voice, because I realised I have these little squeaks and squeals that I never thought about before, and they worked perfectly for her.”
Did you do anything different to portray Marla, as an actor and as a vocal performer?
“I have obviously done a lot of live action, and when it came to do that, that was more of my element. I really understood it, and I have been voice recording Marla for a while, so to suddenly be in the clothes and have to be her in real life, it felt quite natural even though I was singing and dancing, doing very unnatural things. It felt really seamless.
“However, the voice acting side of it, I have never done before, and I kind of assumed that I [would] walk into a booth, and it would be quiet and [I can] relax and all of that.
“It’s hard work! And I don’t think I have ever been so exhausted, than [after] going in and only having your voice as an instrument for the entire day.
“You have to project so much in finding her voice. Her voice doesn’t actually sound like mine. I speak quite low and breathy, and Marla’s voice is up here and excited about everything.
“It’s a bit exhausting at the end of the day, but it was so much fun especially when [director] Lino was in the booth and giving the lines, and you were reacting to them each time.
“Sometimes we would do the whole scene, or sometimes it’s just a bit of it. So, it’s a very different process but I really enjoyed it.”
Tell us about Daniel Radcliffe and his Rex character.
“I didn’t know that Daniel was going to be in the cast, and I was the biggest Harry Potter fan growing up. I learned to read and speak English reading Harry Potter books.
“I was in the booth with Lino and we were doing some of the lines and he was like: ‘We got our Rex’ and I said: ‘Who is it?’, and he said: ‘Daniel Radcliffe’.
“I was like: ‘It’s amazing’, and he is going to be so great in it because he’s essentially Playmobil’s James Bond and I think his voice is perfectly rendered to that ...
“He’s got so many zinger lines that is really funny. I was trying really hard not to crack up in the booth just getting through his sequences.”
Playmobil: The Movie opens in cinemas here on Sept 12.
