John Cleese: Planes voice-over work was easy

Think voicing animated movies is the easy? Well, according to John Cleese you’d be right.

“[That’s] totally the appeal,” the comedy legend told Yahoo! about his part in Disney’s ‘Planes’, a spin-off of Pixar’s ever-popular ‘Cars’. “It’s the most enjoyable work that I do. And the reason it’s so enjoyable is that there’s almost no stress.”

[Monty Python film reunion stalled?]

The ‘Monty Python’ founder, now 73-years-old, also told us how he thinks English actors have a better voice acting technique than their American counter parts: “[They’re] always concerned about the deep emotion.”

So then, how does John channel the emotional spirit of an airplane? He looks to Laurence Olivier, of course.

“I don’t do anything mystical or anything like that. I mean I suppose there are moments where you think ‘Well, wait a moment he is a plane. How would he look at it?’ But no really.”

[Top Gun stars to voice fighter jets in cartoon Planes]

“A lot of the time I think of that phrase that Laurence Olivier said to [Dustin Hoffman on the set of 'Marathon Man']. He explained all the extraordinary pains that he’d gone to create the role and Oliver said ‘Why don’t you just act it?’ And that’s rather my attitude.”

Well he’s honest, if nothing else. Watch the rest of our interview with Cleese above.

‘Planes’, co-starring Dane Cook, Teri Hatcher and Val Kilmer, is out in the UK 16 August 2013.