Do you have a specific favorite Garfield comic strip or TV special that you really enjoyed growing up?
Man, I have a book that I keep up at the farm, which is just the greatest hits. I just love all the comic strips. And I remember seeing them … I can’t remember specifically which ones, but I just remember at such a young age being exposed to Garfield. I think I was probably like 5 years old, 6 years old. It was right around the time that “Gremlins” came out in the theater. My sister would pull the movies out and get really excited about what movies were coming that weekend. So I’d always pull the comics and the movies, and I just remember Garfield being in there.
Did you have a chance to speak with Jim Davis and maybe get notes from him on how to capture the essence of Garfield?
I took all my notes from Mark Dindal, our director, who basically said, “I want him to be you. I think that Garfield has Chris Pratt’s voice. That’s just you. You don’t have to do anything. There’s a certain lazy sarcasm to your voice.” I was like, “Oh, really? Thanks.” So, it was very easy for me to just breathe my own voice and spirit into the character.
You’re known for improvising in various other roles. Did you have a chance to improvise with Garfield? And did anything make it into the final film?
A ton. Yeah. A ton, yeah. It was a lot of colloquial … And not so much improv per se, but just more colloquializing the words and coming up with stuff on my own. I’d always say it as it’s written and then you do it one or two times, and then I would start evolving into making it more naturally my voice. And I think for the most part, it’s probably what’s written, but there are a few things in there. I can’t even remember what was improv and what was written anymore, but it just felt very natural to just come up with ways to say it myself.
