Being a Part of Finding Dory - An Interview Albert Brooks and Hayden Rolence

Stepping into the role of a beloved character like Nemo must have been a bit intimidating for Hayden Rolence, but you'd never know it while watching Disney / Pixar's Finding Dory. He sounds just like the Nemo you know and love and you'd never guess that there was a 13 year time lapse between Finding Nemo and Finding Dory. He didn't miss a beat while taking over for Alexander Gould (who just turned 21 years old). We sat down with Hayden and his on-screen father Albert Brooks (voice of Marlin), to get their thoughts on the film and the challenges in creating a movie that was 13 years in the making.

An interview with Albert Brooks and Hayden Rolence

We asked Albert Brooks, was it easy to slip back into the role?

He responded, "I'm telling you it happens in about twenty seconds... they didn't age the character, so if it's a year later, you start. You've created the character. So as long as you've got your wits about you, you can do it. It's like no time passed. But if they're going to make a third one, they better hurry up because he [Hayden] won't get a job and I'll have to have a wheelchair." As you can imagine, we all busted out laughing at this. It's not secret that people wanted and, in the case of Ellen, campaigned for a Finding Nemo sequel and I think everyone was excited and a little shocked that it was finally happening after all these years.

I imagine that most kids are a fan of Finding Nemo, but we wanted to know if Hayden was a big Nemo fan before the film and what his favorite part of working on the film was.

Hayden said, "I was a very big Nemo fan, even before I knew that I was going to be the voice of Nemo, I was still a really big Nemo fan. I love being able to meet everybody that worked on the film. I just love being able to meet everyone. "

Of course, there are always challenges when working on a project of this magnitude, so we asked Hayden what his biggest challenge was while voicing Nemo.

Hayden responded, "The biggest challenge was probably knowing that Nemo was already a character and knowing that- knowing that I wanted to do him justice. And I didn't want to disappoint anyone." We very quickly assured him that he did a wonderfully, and Albert Brooks also told him what a wonderful job he did.

We also wanted to know about the prep work that goes into it. We questioned Hayden, "Did you do any sort of preparation? Did you watch Finding Nemo?"  

Hayden said, "I did watch Finding Nemo a lot, just to sort of get myself prepared for trying to make my voice sound like Nemo. Because I live in Illinois, so I had to send in a tape, so I was able to just watch the movie, then practice the scene, and watch the movie and practice the scene. And, I did that over and over again. And then finally, I was able to make my voice sort of sound like Nemo,"

Turns out, Hayden was at school when his parents got the call from his agency with the news that he landed the part of Nemo in Finding Dory. They had a little fun with him so they could capture his reaction. "I was actually at school when my parents got the call from my agency, and my parents told me that I had an audition that day. So my dad got out the camera and then they told me the news. I was sort of in disbelief at the beginning, I'm like, "You guys are joking with me right?" Then once I realized that they weren’t actually joking with me, I was astonished. I couldn't believe it."  

Obviously, this movie is a BIG deal for Hayden Rolence. As a veteran actor, Albert Brooks has probably seen it all in the 45+ years he's been in the industry. He even joked with us all when we asked Hayden what he thought of the red carpet experience for the premiere. Hayden said he was excited and a bit nervous. Brooks said, "No other premieres are like that. Trust me, they never take over the whole street." And it did! The Finding Dory world premiere was magical for sure.

We were really interested to know what Albert Brooks thought about doing the sequel. We asked, "What were your thoughts when you heard that they were making a Finding Dory and that you would be doing your role again?"

Brooks responded, "You know, it was so long between the two, I had given up on that... Ellen campaigned for this on national television for ten years. So, I would see it occasionally and I'd say, "Good," you know. Let's berate them into doing this (laughing), but just want the product to be good. The thing about [Director] Andrew Stanton is, out of all the animators there, I think if he thought he couldn't do it, he just wouldn't do it. And he hasn’t made a Wall-E sequel, and he's not a big sequel guy. So, I felt that I didn't know exactly how, but I felt that he would figure it out. But, I just want it to be good. I want them to like the movie first and foremost.

I always wonder what it's like for the actors to see the movie on the night of the premiere. I'd always assumed they'd seen it before that night, but usually that's not the case and they're watching it for the first time alongside the rest of cast, crew, and special guests.

We asked Albert Brooks, "What was the favorite scene from the movie?

The reply for this one is a little tricky because I don't want to give anything away... and Brooks didn't want us to give anything away either. I'm just going to say his response was, "Shells." You'll have to see the movie to know what that means, but it's beyond beautiful. He even said he came out with more emotions than he thought he would.

Besides the fact that the movie triggered more emotions than he thought, we also wanted to know what else surprised Brooks when he saw Finding Dory on the big screen.  I came out with more emotions than I thought I would.

Brooks said, "I was worried, just as a participant, when the movie went through a lot of changes. And I was worried initially four years ago, well how are you going to do the memory thing over a whole course of a movie? Because in [Finding] Nemo the Ellen character is a sidekick and you can make that about jokes. But you don’t want to do that same joke for an hour forty. So I was always raising my hand going, "But you're not going to make that the same joke?" So those devices of the flashbacks and making it more of an issue, that I thought they did great. And I had not seen how that was done quite frankly I didn't even know about the flashbacks. So that was a surprise and I thought it worked great.

Lastly, we wanted to know if Brooks hoped people walked away with any certain message from Finding Dory.

Brooks replied, "I'm not a big message person because I think that you sort of fail if you try to do a message... this really is a movie that you can take kids to and you'll sit through and enjoy. It's the ultimate children's movie, but it's enjoyable. And, I don't think I've sen a movie like that for a while. It's funny without being sarcastic. And it's heartwarming without being schmaltzy and I think people will be surprised that there's more maybe more feeling than they thought."

Special thanks to Sara of BudgetSavvyDiva for the photos in this post. 

Be sure to check out Finding Dory in theaters everywhere now!

Check out the Finding Dory trailer here:

Official information from Disney / Pixar:

Disney•Pixar's “Finding Dory” reunites everyone’s favorite forgetful blue tang, Dory, with her friends Nemo and Marlin on a search for answers about her past. What can she remember? Who are her parents? And where did she learn to speak Whale? Directed by Andrew Stanton (“Finding Nemo,” “WALL•E”) and produced by Lindsey Collins (co-producer “WALL•E”), the film features the voices of Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Ed O'Neill, Kaitlin Olson, Ty Burrell, Eugene Levy and Diane Keaton. “Finding Dory” swims into theaters June 17, 2016.

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