Puss In Boots director responds to Eddie Murphy: 'That's so in character for Donkey'

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish director Joel Crawford has responded to comments made by Eddie Murphy that Shrek’s Donkey is a much funnier character than Puss In Boots for a solo spinoff.

While Murphy’s voice role of Donkey was introduced back in 2001, Antonio Banderas’ appearance as Puss In Boots wasn’t added to the cast until three years later.

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish is in cinemas from 3 February.

Video transcript

JASMINE VALENTINE: One of the things I really loved is that gorgeous change in animation style, especially the action sequences is so fun and so dynamic. How did you arrive at the decision to style it like that? And is it true that "Into the Spider-Verse" was a bit of inspiration for that?

JOEL CRAWFORD: So "Into the Spider-Verse" really did open up opportunities for the entire animation industry. That kind of inspiration from-- I mean, goes back to hand-drawn animation, both from classic Disney but to anime.

For me, "Akira," the 1988 anime movie, was a big inspiration always. And so with the industry being open to expressing animated movies in different styles, we really went full with, let's make sure this feels fantastical. Big, like a fairy tale. And our production designer, Nate Wragg, helmed this idea that the movie looks like you dropped into a fairy tale painting.

And then our head of character animation, Ludo Bouancheau, really took the styles of animation and guided us through. There's grounded traditional CG animation, where everything is smooth, and it feels like our reality. And then there's moments where you're saying when we're in action scenes and things are fantastical, and it feels heightened because we're using what we call stepped animation, which you can see expressions and poses for longer.

And so by using those two in contrast throughout the movie, we connect it to Puss' journey from going from this fairy tale point of view of, I'm going to live forever, into grounded moments where, oh wow, I get one life, and these are the people I can share it with. And so it's wonderful to have basically expand our toolbox to tell these stories now.

JASMINE VALENTINE: Are there any sort of hidden Shrek Easter eggs that fans might be able to look out for?

JOEL CRAWFORD: There are. there are. But I don't think I should say what they are because the fun is-- we did put a lot of-- there's Easter eggs in here, and then there's also things self-contained in the movie. Details pertaining to the characters that if you're rewatch and freeze frame and-- there's a lot to find. Basically, our crew put so much passion into every frame. There's a lot to rediscover over and over again.