Anne Hathaway and Jamie Foxx go to “Rio”!

by Lynn Barker

RIO - coming to a theater near you April 15th! “Catwoman” of the moment, Anne Hathaway, who is also co-hosting the upcoming Academy Awards with hot James Franco, has also recorded the voice of “Jewel”, a feisty blue macaw in the new animated film from Fox Rio, made by the guys who gave you the popular Ice Age films.

Oscar winner Jamie Foxx, who has never recorded a voice for animation before, voices homeboy (Rio style) bird Nikko who befriends and acts as guide to “American” macaw Blu (voiced by The Social Network’s Jesse Eisenberg). See, Blu is the last male of his kind and his owner has taken him to Brazil to mate with last female Jewel but they get off to a rocky start. Blu never learned to fly, which cramps his style with the ladies.

AGW visited the Fox lot and got a great preview of many scenes from the new film introduced by Anne, Jamie and George Lopez who voices Bobo, a toucan and we can’t wait to see the whole thing. It’s super colorful, has great, get-up-and-boogie music and a funny and warm storyline.

Let’s check out what Anne and Jamie had to say about animation, music and, yes, dating!

AGW: Anne, you sing in this film as Jewel and you are very good. Are you singing at the Oscars too?

Anne: Singing has always been something that I've loved to do. I never thought about doing it professionally; I always felt more drawn to acting. But, who knows? I mean, I’m doing things that I never, ever, ever thought I would do in front of a lot of people as well, and so anything is possible.

AGW: Where you nervous about the singing part? Is the one song we just heard all the singing there is in the film?

Anne: There’s quite a bit more. Every time I would come, [Director Carlos Saldanha] would show me more footage and it was just breathtaking. It really was. So then when he says, 'So now can you sing?’ you can’t say anything but ‘yes’. But it is intimidating to sing in front of Sergio [Mendez] and will.i.am, as I'm sure you can imagine. That morning I had an extra cup of coffee to steel my nerves.

AGW: Did you and Jesse Eisenberg ever record your voices together in one booth? Your scenes really had a nice rhythm to them.

Anne: No, no, no. I haven’t seen Jesse except for socially throughout this whole process. Interestingly, for those of you that are avid IMDB surfers, Jesse and I played brother and sister on a Fox Television series in 1999 called “Get Real”. I was his older sister Meghan Green and he was Kenny Green. I’m very happy for all of his success.

JAMIE FOXX AGW: Cool! Anne you’ve done a lot of voices for animation. Is there something special about it for you that makes it freeing or just great, and Jamie this is your first voice? [Jamie nods “yes”].

Anne: This is your first? Really?

AGW: What is the contrast to live action acting and how are you liking it?

Jamie: Well for me, I was just trying to act. I'm doing all these things [he moves his arms around wildly] and [Carlos Saldanha] is like, 'You're not actually on film’, You have to get the voice right, which I felt was the greatest challenge. And then to look at it just blows you away because, just to be honest, a lot of times you go to animated films and you go, 'It’s going to be dumbed down for the kids, and I'm just taking them. I’m chained to my kid’ but this has got the wow factor. I just had a great time.

AGW: And Anne. Why choose to do so many animated voices?

Anne: You're giving me way too much credit. I love employment and it’s never, ever guaranteed. As much as I love doing animated voices, I just kind of love working. I loved the people who have asked me to do it and it’s been an honor. I’ve worked on “The Simpsons” twice and now I've worked with Carlos. I just keep getting these opportunities that I can’t say no to. No one could.

AGW: You're going to be the MC for the Academy Awards. We just saw that you can fly in the film. Are we going to see some kind of new side of Anne Hathaway at the Academy Awards presentation?

Anne: I will turn myself into an animated blue bird and fly at the Oscars, yes. Blue Sky has been working on it forever. I hope so because that means I get to meet a new version of myself, which is kind of I think the best part about working is that you never know what you're going to learn when you start out. Oftentimes what you wind up learning is very different than what you expect. So hopefully, yeah.

AGW: Jamie, if you didn’t record with anyone, did you work at all with Will.i.am [from the Black-Eyed Peas]?

Jamie: Yes, Will and I worked on the music. That was hot. The history of me and will.i.am is we performed at Wango Tango. That’s when my daughter said that I had made it in music. We did the “We Are The World” joint. Then with this, this is just mind-blowing. I mean to be able to do that Samba joint and watch will.i.am; he does the engineering and the producing at the same time, which usually it's one or the other. He says he’s so comfortable in the studio, so that was fantastic.

Anne: Yeah, Will and Sergio [Mendez] were there when I did my voice part too, but none of the actors.

AGW: This film seems to have themes of pursuing your dreams and finding yourself. What advice would you give a kid or teen to not give up in the face of adversity?

ANNE HATHAWAY Jamie: Hey, we might as well get it all in as far as living and enjoying your life because if you look at how long the earth has been here, we're living in the blink of an eye so whatever it is you want to do, you go out and do it. I remember meeting President Obama looking at him like, '[Dang], this dude is really our President.' It tripped me out like, 'You really went out and did it!' So if you look at stories like that, it’s just about freeing your mind and taking those guards [down]. Just bowl that strike, or at least try.

Anne: I think the only thing in life that you really have to worry about is how you treat other people. If you mess up and treat someone else badly, you apologize and don’t apologize for anything else. Be yourself and go for it. And then just a little bit of practical advice: When you’re doing something and it feels really hard, like you’re on a treadmill and you don’t want to finish the thing, you look at it and you say, 'Okay, this is 20 minutes versus the rest of my life. I’m going to spend the rest of my life doing so many other things, I can do this for 20 minutes.' Break it down into achievable goals, you’ll wind up achieving more than you ever thought you could.

AGW: So Jewel in the movie plays extraordinarily hard to get. Anne, playing hard to get, is that something you do when dating?

Anne: I am a girl without game. I’m not interested in games. I think if you are someone who playing hard to get comes naturally to, do that. For me, I’m a 'wear my heart on my sleeve, fall in love at first sight go with it' sort of girl. I don’t know, don't you think it's all about having fun with someone? Learning how to communicate with someone in a way that you enjoy? If you're with someone who enjoys that, maybe that’s the way you're supposed to do it. I don’t know.

Jamie: And it’s tough in L.A. too. When your movie is hot, your options are like crazy. I love dating in L.A. because I think girls have to play a little hard to get here because we come with so much bravado and so much stuff. I love how I’ll date a girl and they'll always put 'little' in front of everything I do. They say, ‘Hi, Jamie. I know who you are. I see you doing your little movies and win your little Grammys and win your little Oscar.' Huh? I dig the person that’s not quite so easy because the easy thing sort of scares me. You'll meet somebody and all of a sudden you’re dating and you’re on a cruise.

Anne: I think everybody knows exactly what you're talking about, Jamie. Don’t you just hate it when you meet someone and all of a sudden you're on a cruise? [we laugh]

But, Jamie, I have a question. Would you prefer a girl who is up front with her feelings but is honest with you? So like if she was like, 'I like you but I’m going to call you on your stuff’.

Jamie: It varies. I usually date outside the business because the person who is maybe an accountant or a lawyer or something like that, is just a totally different thing. The actor and the actress, sometimes we’ll be playing a scene out. I agree with that, the trueness of the feelings right off the bat for people like myself usually helps. But then what's the problem is, you have to stick to the truth that you set up.

See Rio in theaters this April.

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