Summary
- Chris Pratt feels “grateful” and “blessed” to put his spin on the lasagna-obsessed, Monday-hating cat in
The Garfield Movie. - Pratt follows in the footsteps of fellow Garfield voice actors Lorenzo Music and Bill Murray.
- The first half-hour TV special featuring the animated, orange tabby Persian cat,
Here Comes Garfield
(1982), aired over 40 years ago.
Here Comes Garfield (1982) was the first of the lasagna-loving feline’s half-hour television specials, and it introduced the late Lorenzo Music as the voice of the animated, orange tabby Persian cat. In 2004, Bill Murray took up the mantle for the big screen in Garfield: The Movie. Today, the legacy of Jim Davis’ kitty creation falls into the hands of Chris Pratt. And the Marvel Cinematic Universe mainstay feels “grateful” and “blessed” to voice the fat cat in The Garfield Movie. Pratt discussed putting his own unique spin on the character in an interview with Moviefone. The actor said:
“Man, I’m grateful.
This is an entire collaborative effort by a great production team and a wonderful director who had been working on this for years before I jumped on board. So really, I was just honored and blessed that
they thought the voice of the guy from ‘Parks and Rec’ was the voice of this cat.That’s what they told me. He [director Mark Dindal] said, ‘I’ve been working on this for years.
I keep hearing your voice coming out of this cat in my head.
That’s what I want.
You’ve got a natural, lazy, sarcastic tone to your voice. I want that voice.’”
The Garfield Movie
3/5
Based on Jim Davis’s comic series, Garfield is a new imagining of the lasagna-loving cat and his friends, opting for a fully computer-animated approach. Chris Pratt voices the titular cat, with the film aiming to explore his early days and new misadventures for him, his friends, and his family.
- Release Date
- May 24, 2024
- Studio
- Alcon Entertainment, Columbia Pictures, Paws
- Tagline
- He gets bigger.
Pratt continued in the same sit-down:
“I was like,
‘Well, that’s cool because I know the guy who has that voice,
and he could do it for you.
I’ve been working on this voice for my whole life, apparently.’
So, it was nice. In a way, it kind of took the pressure off because I knew what they wanted,
and only I could give it to them.
It was just something organic and natural, my own breath, my own voice, my own spirit for this character.
I feel blessed.”
Chris Pratt Relates to ‘Pampered’ Garfield in Real Life
The Garfield Movie’s Rotten Tomatoes score plummeted from 67% to 50% when the U.S. review embargo lifted, and now it currently dwells at a dismal 37%. But the fans haven’t let the critics dissuade them. At the time of this writing, Garfield’s audience score is a much more impressive 82%, which falls in line almost perfectly with its “B+” CinemaScore.
Now, will The Garfield Movie ultimately succeed at the box office? Well, cinephiles will have to wait and see, but the responsibility of carrying the feline’s legacy now lies squarely on the shoulders of Chris Pratt. And the actor admits that he can even relate to Garfield in his real life. Pratt said in the same interview:
“There are elements in my life that make me feel like Garfield now.
I’m very pampered. I’m a Hollywood guy.
There was a certain affectation in the voice which was kind of closer to what a person sounds like when they’re about to yawn,
and I just thought that was kind of something to work in.
That’s where I was feeling like a lot of times the voice would come from,
and just trusting the director and knowing that we had a great script.”
The Garfield Movie Review: A Delightfully Wacky Origin Story
Garfield (Chris Pratt) meets his long-lost father (Samuel L. Jackson) and helps him pay a debt to a Persian kitty gangster (Hannah Waddingham).
Pratt continued:
“Once the action took over,
it was about a character that was on an adventure.
So, it’s like
the sleepiness and the laziness that really works for the character who’s being pampered
and who’s living a lazy life. But when you’re on the run, and you’re in a heist movie,
you must shift gears and become a character on an action adventure.”
Be sure to check out MovieWeb’s exclusive Garfield Movie interview with Pratt to find out his thoughts on not only replacing Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield, but also how creator Jim Davis gave the actor a perfect 10-out-of-10 approval rating as the new, lazy, lasagna-loving cat.
The Garfield Movie
is now playing exclusively in theaters.
