Surf's Up Dudes and Dudettes!

Think you've had it with cute penguin movies? Don't speak so soon. This summer you've got to see Surf's Up. It's a very cute animated film, shot as if a movie crew went on a competitive surfing safari and shot a documentary. The partial film we saw was very funny, visually beautiful (love those waves) and heartwarming. In brief, a little rockhopper penguin named Cody Maverick (Shia LaBeouf) worships a Big Kahuna-style surfer named Big Z (Jeff Bridges). Cody leaves his home in Antarctica to go to Pen Gu Island for the Big Z memorial surf-off. On the way, he meets a surf nut called Chicken Joe (Jon Heder), a sleazy surf promoter (James Woods), a surf talent scout, a feisty lifeguard (Zooey Deschanel) and believes that winning is everything...until he learns how to be a real winner in life.

We went to a preview party for the film on the Sony Pictures lot where a soundstage was transformed into Pen Gu Island. It looked and felt like we were in the tropics. We had our picture taken with a human-sized Cody Maverick and chatted with the cool actors doing the voices for the film about this movie and their future projects (rumors are rampant that Shia will play Indiana Jones' son in the next, long-awaited Indy movie!) . Check out the fun antics with Zooey, Jeff, Shia and Jon! Picture everyone sitting at tables with tropical-themed centerpieces and an island flavor all around. First, we chat with Shia and Jeff, then later, Zooey and Jon Heder...

TeenHollywood: Jeff, did you have to change your voice for this Big Z part?

Jeff: (in a high pitched voice) Actually this is my real voice. (he laughs) No, I just thought I'd play it as real, and one of the things that was appealing about the whole project to me was this kind of documentary quality, this Spinal-Tap kind of take on it all, playing it pretty serious and find the humor in that.

TeenHollywood: Shia, how did you get involved?

Shia: Jeff was always first choice and I've always wanted to work with him, so that was a huge appeal, and then you meet Chris and Ash [the films' directors] and they start letting you loose and you realize how much free-flow thought you can put into it. It's always fun to have that much control, you know. Plus it was a new concept, it was this hybrid version of animation that had never been done before, it's good to be a part of new things, it's stretching the art form a bit, so you want to be part of those types of things.

TeenHollywood: How free were both of you to go off on the script?

Shia: Total freedom.

Jeff: Oh yeah, they always encouraged that. They would have a script that kind of gave you the bones of the scene, but they were always calling on me, 'Use your imagination and bring whatever you have to bring.' That's always the most fun.

TeenHollywood: Shia in the acting world, who was your Big Z, the person you looked up to, when you were little?

Shia: Dustin Hoffman, then I found Gary Oldman, and there are a lot of them. Who's your Big Z, Jeff?

Jeff: Robert Ryan, I got to work with him. He was a really interesting actor. I did The Iceman Cometh with him. I could see these two big pools of sweat on his hands, and I said, 'Bob, you're frightened after all these years?' And he said, 'I'd really be scared if I wasn't scared.' And he taught me that fear is something that's always with you and you've got to kind of befriend that, and that's your buddy, so that calmed me down quite a bit.

TeenHollywood: Cool thing to learn. You record the voices on animated movies over a long period of time. So, did either of you get a little worried when you heard about Happy Feet, another penguin movie coming out?

Shia: This is four years of fruition to get here and you get worried but then you see how successful it is, it's almost uplifting. It was just happenstance that these movies happened all at once. It wasn't as though we were copycatting. It's impossible in animation, because it takes so long to make these things.

Jeff: When it came out, it was not exactly fear but I'd go, 'Awwww.' Because there's an element that kind of horse races and stuff to making the movies, and you want your horse to do as well as it can, and like Shia was saying, maybe it's good news for us, maybe it's bad news, I don't know, but there will be that day when, 'And they're coming up the stretch,' you're rooting for your guy.

TeenHollywood: Well, the stories are very different. There's a very funny line that Cody says, 'I don't sing and dance.'

Shia: [grinning] Yeah, we added that after.

Q: You've been staying really busy for the last couple of years, what makes you choose one project over another? You're not a struggling actor. We hear you will be in the new Indiana Jones movie.

Shia: Well, that's just a rumor. I know that when I have a job I sign contracts and I talk to directors and I haven't had any of that happen, so until that happens I'm out of work. I'm looking into a whole bunch of different things, and if that happens of course I'm on board, it's a dream job, but it's a rumor right now and a dream.

At this point, Jeff, who is wearing an Indiana Jones-style hat, puts the hat on Shia's head. Shia loves it and looks good in it! He grins.

TeenHollywood: You were about Jeff's age when he got started in acting, did you get any advice from him about being a young actor?

Shia: I think I was too nervous to ever ask so we didn't have those talks. We talked about his ukulele, we talked about Montana and we talked about penguins and we'd come up with little things to say. We talked a lot about music.

Jeff: I related to Shia. Just the way he approached the work is very much the way my father [actor Lloyd Bridges] taught us how to approach it. He worked with a lot of joy and has a lot of fun, and that's kind of contagious, and it kind of goes back and forth and creates that kind of cool friction to make the fire. Shia kind of reminded me of how I like to do it.

TeenHollywood: Let's talk upcoming projects. Jeff, you are the bad guy Obadiah Stane in Iron Man. What attracted you to that role?

Jeff: Well, the group was a big draw. We had Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow and Terrence Howard, and our leader is [director] Jon Favreau, I'm a big fan of Swingers which he wrote. The story of Iron Man, is interesting, it's not your typical superhero where he's got some kind of super power. It's about dealing with weapons manufacturers and the politics of the world, and so forth so I got hooked.

TeenHollywood: Shia, what's going to surprise us in Transformers?

Shia: I'll just tell you this, we went to get our MPAA rating and we got a rated R because of intensity, not because of curse words or nudity, but because of sheer intensity, it's aneurysm inducing. And so Spielberg fought the good fight and we're back at PG-13.

Shia: It's so intense, man, and there's not a lot of breathers, it's just whooooo, and you've never seen any animation like this. ILM has done some pretty magical, wild things, just Megatron's arm has fifteen thousand moving pieces that all converge like a Rubik's cube. Just the chase scenes alone are insane, but then you have two forty-foot tall machines on the 405 freeway boxing, it's like, it's just nuts. The biggest surprises will be visual, only because it's never been done like that and it will be fun to see what happens.

Here come Zooey Deschanel and Jon Heder. She's cute in vintage summer dress and he's in casual tee and jeans. She shivers and Jon gives her his jacket.

Zooey: Awwww, what a gentleman.

Jon: No. I just don't want you complaining.

TeenHollywood: Okay, how does one go about playing a chicken and a penguin?

Zooey: I spent three months alone in a penguin cave, alone, unreachable.

Jon: I went to Antarctica and then realized I was a chicken so I had to go back to Michigan [where his character is from] and check it out there.

TeenHollywood: Okay, we can see where this interview is going. Nothing serious from you guys! Are you finished doing your voices?

Zooey: We're still continuing.

Jon: I still have next week to do some more. It's always broken up like every three months and you'll forget like 'okay, what's goin' on again?'

Zooey: And they'll send you the [script] pages.

TeenHollywood: You had a unique opportunity to work with other actors in the room recording voices. Have you both done animation before?

Zooey: I haven't.

Jon: The other animation I did was motion capture so all the experience I've had was working with the other actors so I haven't experience normal animation.

TeenHollywood: Did you just do a lot of ad-libbing?

Zooey: Yeah. There was a lot of improvisation.

Jon: It was supposed to be in that style of a documentary..

Zooey: Like Spinal Tap.

Jon: So, you had ideas and little lines but it was more like 'okay, say this line and then just kind of riff'. Sometimes there was complete silence. I don't know what to say.

TeenHollywood: Did you have a backstory that you thought up for your characters?

Jon: They had a backstory. You're a chicken from Michigan who surfs on a lake. I remember when I first came in to start practicing with the character, it was just more making stuff up so we kind of wrote it as we went. But, it's so weird that it's a chicken.

Jon: We added a whole musical number [he's kidding].

Zooey: [playing along] We had to take it out. Thanks a lot, Happy Feet. It used to be about dancing penguins.

Jon: And they made it about surfing. We'll just switch it around, spend billions of dollars and make a change.

TeenHollywood: Growing up, what were the favorite animation movies for you two?

Zooey: Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White.

Jon: I loved Robin Hood and all those Disney ones and The Secret of Nimh was pretty cool.

TeenHollywood: Jon, how did you decide to do a voice for this movie?

Jon: I honestly loved the character design of my guy. Alright, penguins, that's cool but I liked the chicken. I just liked the design. He looked reminiscent of a lot of old school animation. I just thought he looked so cool. 'I've just got to do him'.

Zooey: You probably saw the wave test? That was very impressive to me. The [ocean] wave was so beautiful. That kind of got me in to do it.

TeenHollywood: Jon, you studied animation in school. What about your own animation projects with your brothers?

Jon: I'm not involved in any right now but we hope to get involved with some. I love CGI. I, technically am much better at CG myself, doing it on my own but we love old-school too.

Zooey: [looking amazed at Jon] Are you an animator? No way.

Jon: Yeah, that's what I originally did.

TeenHollywood: Would you like to ask each other some questions? [Jon grabs my tape recorder and holds it over to Zooey].

Zooey: [into the recorder] Okay, Jon, how did you get into animation?

Jon: Growing up I was into art and I loved movies and, when I got into college, I figured..

Zooey: It was a perfect marriage.

Jon: I loved it. And, then getting into acting, that's really what animation is. It's really just bringing a character to life whether it be through motion, or through your acting or your voice or whatever. That's what really drew me into that world.

TeenHollywood: What was the most surprising thing you found about doing voices for Surf's Up?

Jon: That it's hard.

Zooey: How fun it was. It was so fun and relaxed. It was very laid back.

Jon: Especially when you don't have a hardcore script. You just say whatever lines you get ..

Zooey: And then you just have fun.

Jon: Here's your situation....now go!

Zooey: We had more time to work on the characters than any movie I've been involved with. Over three years.

Jon: And you start getting into certain territory and they like it so much they call you back a week or so or a month later, with 'okay, now expand on that'. It was weird because there was no real script. After I signed on to the movie, I still didn't see the script. I'm like 'Can I see the script?' and they're like 'we don't really have one'.

Zooey: Yeah, they just formed it. It evolved. There was one character Arnold that I just started talking to. He wasn't really even in there.

Jon: The little kid?

Zooey: Yeah, then they're like 'yes, we love Arnold'.

Jon: Did you make him up or was there a kid there?

Zooey: I think I called him Arnold. They're like 'there's this little kid you have to save all the time' and I just started calling him Arnold and they're like 'okay, yay, he's Arnold'.

Jon: Do you remember the scene with the duckies behind me? That got cut out but I said stuff about ducks and I think they're like 'horrible but we like the idea of the ducks. Let's put those in'.

TeenHollywood: What were the most people in a booth recording at one time?

Zooey: It wasn't a booth. It was a big room. Kind of like a recording studio size. I think we had three at most.

Jon: The most I ever had was us three.

Zooey: I did a bunch of stuff with Shia and Jeff.

TeenHollywood: They filmed you as you were doing the voices. Do you see yourself in the performances?

Jon: You always try to look so cool. I've seen so many animations and watching the behind-the-scenes. Zooey didn't even think about it because she's that cool and I get totally self-whatever.

Zooey: I forgot that that video was on and then I watched it and I was like 'oh my god. She has my posture' and a lot of things that she was doing.

Jon: He moves a lot like a chicken and I kind of forgot to do that while recording.

TeenHollywood: Did you just come in your jammies? You don't have to dress up or put make-up on to record voices. A lot of actors say they just love that.

Jon: Did you just ask if we came in our jammies? It's true. Although she comes dressed up and I'm in my jammies, sometimes naked.

Zooey: You were not! Pajammies. They're cute.

TeenHollywood: Do you think penguins are cute?

Zooey: I think penguins are cute [pointing over across the room] There's a little penguin over there that's so cute!

Jon: Sure but they smell. The last time I saw penguins was at an aquarium and they reeked. They smelled bad but they seemed cute. They're cool.

TeenHollywood: What's next for you guys? Jon, we know you are in Blades of Glory and we just saw Zooey in Bridge to Terabithia.

Zooey: So many things. I had two movies at Sundance and a movie at South By Southwest [film festival] and I'm about to do a mini-series "Tin Man" on the Sci-Fi channel. "Tin Man" is on the Wizard of Oz. I play Dorothy.

TeenHollywood: The book was dark.

Zooey: Yeah, it's kind of dark. I'm leaving in three weeks to do it in Vancouver. The new Hollywood. I hope they're ready for me.

Jon: To rock their world.

TeenHollywood: Zooey, have you and your sister Emily [who stars on "Bones" on TV] ever done anything together?

Zooey: Many plays that we wrote as children. A movie would be fun. I would love to do that but she's so busy. She has to schedule her time like three months in advance. She's like 'I can see you on May 27th at 4:30 PM'. I have to work out with her if I want to hang out with her because she has to do so many things at once because she only has a couple of hours a week. We'll have to run and chat.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.