In the brand new Garfield animated, Chris Pratt lends his voice to the ginger cat while Samuel L. Jackson voices his biological father, Vic. Spotlight on an animated film designed for families.
First appearing as a comic strip in a local daily newspaper in 1976, before being distributed in publications across the United States in 1978, the cat Garfield quickly won the hearts of all readers.
Work of Jim Davis, the cat is recognizable among thousands. First of all, he’s a redhead. Then, he has a rather difficult character, inspired by that of the author’s grandfather, whom he describes as “a tall and capricious man”. If Garfield was the star of television cartoons for almost 20 years, he was more shy in the cinema, this Garfield being only his third appearance since 2004, when the first feature film was released.
“I felt close to Garfield from the beginning of the dubbing,” said Chris Pratt in the pages of Moviefone. “There are many things in my life that make me feel like Garfield. I’m in Hollywood, I’m being treated very well. He has inflections in his voice that make you think of someone who is about to yawn and I found that I needed to work on that. I trusted the director [NDLR Mark Dindal, connu pour Un empereur nouveau genre] and I knew we had a good script. Once the action starts, it’s a movie about a character going on a big adventure. His fatigue and laziness really work very well for this case who is constantly dolled up and leads an indolent existence.
Because Garfield will finally meet his father, a stray cat named Vic, whose voice is provided by none other than Samuel L. Jackson. “Vic knows how to survive on the streets. He’s scruffy, wise and a bit of a runaway. Garfield is a lasagna-loving, Monday-hating, sarcastic, and pampered pet. Vic takes him on an epic adventure with Odie [NDLR Le meilleur ami de Garfield, doublé par Harvey Guillén]. The storyline leads them into a very funny, high-stakes heist story.”
Katherine Schwarzenegger and Chris Pratt at the premiere of “The Garfield Movie” at the TCL Chinese Theater IMAX in Los Angeles on May 19, 2024.
Photo MEGA/WENN
Because Garfield was abandoned as a baby in an alley. “Seeing that father-son relationship being repaired, all while seeing Vic teach Garfield some lessons on how to be an outdoor cat, is part of the fun of the movie,” added the actor, who is not his first attempt at dubbing because we heard his voice in the animated films of the franchise Lego as well as with the famous plumber of Super Mario Bros. the film.
In the pages of Screen Rant, Chris Pratt explained what he thought were the reasons for Garfield’s success.
“My first discovery of Garfield was from the comic strip. When I was a kid, I loved Garfield, I loved Odie – my cousin actually named his dog “Odie”. Garfield has been like an omnipresent piece in the mosaic of every person’s childhood since 1978. It’s the most widely distributed comic strip in the world! And it’s when you start to get older that you understand the true appeal of Garfield.”
“Garfield is a rebel and a kind of iconoclast. He sort of gave a voice to working class people who said that working 40 hours a week was hard. I think that’s why adults love it so much. As for the children, they love him because he’s a big orange cat.”
Garfield: the movie will have moviegoers meowing from May 24.
