For the record, Chris O’Dowd and Aziz Ansari, I was totally onto you. Appropriately, the comedy duo serves as Epic’s comedic relief, Grub (O’Dowd) the snail and Mub (Ansari) the slug. When Grub isn’t dreaming of joining the ranks of the Leaf Men and Mub isn’t hitting on Mary Katherine (voice byAmanda Seyfried), the pair is in charge of keeping a very special little pod moist. It sounds like a silly job, but if that pod doesn’t bloom in the moonlight, the entire forest could wilt at the hands of the leader of the Boggans, Mandrake (voiced by Christoph Waltz).
When Ansari wasn’t rising to the challenge and seeing how many times he could squeeze Ice Age 4: Continental Drift into a single interview, we discussed how they fleshed out their characters while the animators put the world of Epic together, to Ansari’s amusement, how working on Epic compared to Ice Age 4: Continental Drift, a Michele Bachmann namedrop, and whether or not they got the opportunity to improvise. Moving on to their upcoming films, O’Dowd was cryptic or perhaps honestly uninformed about his Thor: The Dark World cameo and Ansari touched on the difficultly of getting his own scripts into production.
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The moment you’re famous enough that your voice becomes recognizable, the animated movie offers must come pouring in, but even after years of being in the spotlight, Epic only marks Amanda Seyfried’s very first foray into the world of voice work. She plays Mary Katherine, the daughter of Professor Bomba (voiced by Jason Sudeikis) who’s essentially given up everything for an obsessive pursuit to prove that there are tiny warriors living in the forest. Like everyone else, MK isn’t buying it, but when Queen Tara (voiced by Beyonce Knowles) has no choice but to shrink MK down to Leaf Man size so she can help save the forest, MK realizes her father’s been right all along.
After all these years, it’s surprising Colin Farrell has yet to lend his voice to an animated character, but turns out, waiting served him well because his character, Ronan, is featured in the “achingly beautiful” world that drew Farrell to Epic to begin with. Ronan is the leader of the Leaf Men and when Mandrake (voiced by Christoph Waltz) and the Boggans threaten to destroy the forest, he joins forces with the formerly human-sized Mary Katherine (voice by Amanda Seyfried), a renegade young Leaf Man, Nod (voiced by Josh Hutcherson), and a slug and a snail, Mub and Grub (voiced by Aziz Ansari and Chris O’Dowd), to ensure a very special little pod stays safe, giving them a chance to keep the terrain lush with greenery and life.
Odds are, when you consider the horror genre in general, you’re thinking bloodbaths, vicious villains and relentless scare tactics. While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, wouldn’t you like to give a different type of scare a go for a change?