TANGLED -- Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi

00:00 - 01:50 Intro and first question: This is Andrea Chase and I’m talking with Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi about TANGLED , an animated fable of longing, long hair, and the surprisingly effective use of frying pans in a bar fight. Moore voices Rapunzel, kidnapped by Mother Gothel from her royal parents because of the magical properties embedded in her golden hair, which by the time Rapunzel is about to turn 18 has grown to a prodigious 70 feet in length. Enter Flynn, a dashing thief with a personal swagger and a sack full of royal swag who is on the lam from a very determined police horse. Flynn scales the tower in which Rapunzel is imprisoned only to find the naïve girl is a caution with kitchen implements and with the torque properties of her ebulliently cascading locks. Rapunzel makes Flynn an offer he can’t refuse. He’ll guide her through her first foray into the world, where she longs to see the lights that mysteriously appear in the sky every year on her birthday, and she’ll return the loot she hid while he recovered from being conked on the head with her trusty frying pan.
Moore’s previous work includes a mean girl with a holier-than-thou attitude in SAVED, a wickedly focused contestant with a convenient moral compass going for broke on a televised singing competition in AMERICAN DREAMZ. She is also a recording artist with gold albums to her credit, and is the Ambassador for PSI’s Five & Alive Organization, which fights malaria in 30 countries.

Levi, meanwhile, beguiles a rabidly devoted audience on and as television’s Chuck, and has spoken frankly and openly on the internet about his Nissan GT-R as well as proclaimed his essential nerd-dom with his own site, The Nerd Machine.com. He has also ping-ponged on behalf of Habitat for Humanity.

TANGLED was directed by Nathan Greno, Byron Howard from a script written by Dan Fogelman.

One particular moment when Rapunzel smack Flynn with a frying pan for the first time and you, Mandy, make this adorable squeak and I was wondering if that was spontaneous, did they ask for that . . .

She replies that she thinks it has something to do with Rapunzel not having seen another human being other than her mother and having been told that the outside world is a dangerous place. The most embarrassing part of doing voice work is the effort sounds, like the squeak and wielding the frying pan.

02:29 - 02:32 Did making the squeak hurt her voice at all? No, but thank you for asking.

02:42 - 04:04 Levi discusses the use of spontaneity in doing the recording. Most of it was on the page, but he was also encouraged to spin things different ways and could go on a little riff. Easier in voice over, not wasting film, for example. He then defines “alt”, a term he used, as meaning an alternate take.

04:13 - 05:02 What it’s like to work in the recording booth with only the directors, but not the co-star, to work off of. They weren’t just the guides, they were also helpful to give the actor’s references as to what would be going on on screen during the dialogue. They could help with what the other actors had already done.

05:05 - 06:32 Levi is asked jokingly if having recorded his dialogue first put any extra pressure on him to set the tone and he and Moore playfully discuss who did what when. He then talks more seriously about being true to the characters, and bringing the right emotions to one of the more dramatic scenes.

06:39 -07:30 Whether or not they asked to hear recordings other actors had already done in order to do their recording. Levi opines that it might not have been helpful even if the recordings had been available because it wouldn’t have been happening right then, the dialogue that is. It’s not just about hearing what they’re saying, it’s also about looking the other actor in the eye.

07:38 -08:38 Levi discusses the specifics of doing a smoldering voice, and voices in general. He gives a little sultry voice at the end.

08:27 - 09:15 Moore discusses the camera in the recording booth, which she thought was for the making-of feature on the DVD, but is actually for the animators use for reference. She discusses meeting the animators and being thanked for being so lively and making their job easier.

09:25 -10:14 Moore talks about little gestures she makes that she recognized in the final animation. Levi uses the word “gesticular” to describe how he moves and I say how thankful I am that he enunciates clearly.

10:18 - 12:25 Moore and Levi describe their trip to the animation floor at Disney in more detail and the souvenirs they received from them. They were amazed by the number of people involved, including the team that just worked on Rapunzel’s hair. They were particularly amazed by Glen Keane, one of Disney’s veterans. Levi describes him as stoked while showing him how he animated a ball bouncing.

12:35 - 13:01 I asked them to satisfy my curiosity about a peculiar credit “caffeination unit” They humored me and whomever it or they was or were, they were essential considering the amount of time it takes to make a film like this.

13:05 - 13:15 In response to my describing my image of the unit as Mrs. Potts pushing a cart, Levi jumped in to affirm that is was Angela Lansbury who did that and solved murders at the same time.

13:15 - 13:21 Thank yous and outro.