BY GENE TRIPLETT

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – Acting can become a lonely artistic endeavor when it comes to doing voice work for an animated film. Each of the  cast members usually work separately and alone and at different times, sitting in a recording studio booth, reading their lines from a script, doing without the luxury of playing off of other live, warm actor bodies in front of them.

Well, under the direction of Gore Verbinski, that problem was solved during the making of the trippy animated animal fable/Western, “Rango.”

Voice stars Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Ned Beatty, Harry Dean Stanton, Bill Nighy and all the others who played the good, the bad and the ugly creatures populating and surrounding the desert town of Dirt were brought into a studio together, given whole or partial costumes and props to work with, and were actually filmed as they were allowed to play out their roles together, bouncing their performances off one another as if they were making a live action movie or putting on a play together.

“The process that we did, Gore created this sort of atmosphere that was really, truly ludicrous, I mean ridiculous, it was like just regional theater at its worst,” Depp, the voice of chameleon hero Rango,  said during  a recent press conference  at Beverly Hills’ Four Seasons Hotel.

“And somehow –not the idea of motion capture — but emotion capture, you know, certain gestures, body language, movement, something you might have done, you know, with your eyes, all those guys, you know, these animators took it and put it in there. So I mean, it was very strange. I mean, for Harry Dean Stanton to walk up to me one afternoon — because I’ve known him for a million years — and he walks up to me  and says, ‘This is a weird gig, man.’”

Isla Fisher, the voice of a beleagured rancher named Beans,  said the unusual process worked for her.

“I think the characters had humanity because we were interacting with each other, and more chemistry, and so it felt more organic and real. What do you think, Abigail?”

 Breslin, 14, who plays a cute little rodent girl named Priscilla, said, “You know, when you’re in just like a booth, by yourself, it’s like very isolating, and you don’t really, like, have anything to sort of play off of except like one take of one line, and then like a beep … I think that it was, well, for me at least, a lot more fun. Although I did wear a wig, like a black wig, and I got a really bad rash on my neck from it, and so that was a little unfortunate.”

“And you were carrying a gun,” Fisher said. “Which was weird, to see Abigail with a massive gun.”

“It was so bizarre,” Breslin agreed, “because, like, there was actually guns going, and you don’t think that there are like firearms in an animated movie. And it’s, like, live.”

“Gore always travels with guns,” Depp said.

“Absolutely,” Verbinski nodded. “Keep people from going to sleep.”

“Yeah,” Depp said.

“But I liked doing this,” Breslin said. “And I don’t think that they do many animated movies like that. But I suppose I’d be in an isolated booth, too, if it was a cool movie.”

“But you’d still wear the wig and the gun and stuff,” Depp said.

“I’d still, I’d still come completely, full out in the character’s costume,” Breslin declared.

“That whole emotion capture, sort of live action record,” Verbinski said. “When I heard people say, ‘Well, it’s an animated movie, this is how they do it. They get a microphone and an actor.’ And I just thought that sounded so crazy to me. I’ve got Harry Dean Stanton and I’ve got, you know, Johnny Depp. I want to see them together. I mean, it’s acting, you know? It’s reacting … Otherwise it’s not going to feel honest.”

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