The second film has them fending off many of the baddies from the old show, including the Black Knight Ghost, the 10,000 volt ghost and Miner 49er. Remember those guys? The second film also has more of the original program's cartoony feel, which plays well opposite Cardellini's and Lillard's cartoon-driven performances.
At the Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed press day at the St. Regis hotel in Los Angeles last weekend, I got a chance to speak with many of the cast and crew members of Scooby 2. I even got a brief tour of the Coolsville criminology museum. The theme of the weekend was fun and it appeared very clear that everyone involved on the sequel had a great time, maybe even better than the first. But let's hear Velma and Shaggy tell it...
The overlying theme of Scooby 2 is being happy being yourself. When Shaggy bumbles a plan, he begins to feel that he's more of a hindrance to the gang than a help. Shaggy makes an attempt at being a "serious detective." "Well, he certainly grows by the end of the movie, which is fun. By the end of the movie, he realizes that he has a place in the gang and that being who he is is what he's best at. I think that's the great thing about the movie, I mean, there's a bunch of great things. First of all, I think we all set out to make a better movie than the first. The first movie was a big hit and it was very successful, but we realized it wasn't as good a movie as it could have been. So we all made a commitment to make a better movie and I think we did that. I think we're all very proud of that fact."
Like Shaggy, Velma also flirts with personality changes in Scooby 2, attempting to go from brainy to built, donning a red leather jumper, which she actually fills out quite nicely. "I think it's funny that everything falls apart for Velma when she starts to try to be somebody she's not or get over-glamorized. [The outfit] actually wasn't that bad. The only bad part about it is it doesn't breathe. It's not real leather. I knew in the script that she was going to try to put on something sexy so I knew ahead of time. I stepped it up a little and it was great because, when you're in a new place... I had never spent a significant amount of time there [in Vancouver] not working, and I had more time off living there."
Both Cardellini and Lillard are also a little bit used to their character's crazy voices the second time around. "No, it's actually incredibly, scarily easy," says Cardellini. "It's almost harder not to fall into it at times. It's fun, it's actually really fun."
"The first time around, it was difficult, but it wasn't that hard," Lillard says of his Casey Kasem voice. "I finally realized before it was over that the whole thing takes place in the crack of your voice between falsetto and bass, so it was just a matter of finding that and playing with it."
When Cardellini, Lillard and crew worked on the first movie, they really weren't sure exactly how Scooby would wind up looking in his final CGI form. Both say that knowing that made it easier this time:
"[CGI] is still the hardest thing you could ever imagine doing," says Lillard. "You just kind of commit. It's a lot like running a marathon. It's an endurance race. You just realize that at the beginning of Scooby you're just going to start at level ten and stay at ten the entire time. It's hard. It physically beats you up. It's definitely one of the hardest movies you can do. So much about movies is between two people. The acting, reacting, the energy. You just don't have that, you have nothing. I mean, you have Neil, I couldn't do it without him. Neil Fanning plays the voice of Scooby and is on set everyday. We always have a voice, at least. Either in your ear pieces or off [camera]. I couldn't do it without him. Before takes, we run lines. He's just another eye to watch what I'm doing. He's great."
"It's all very technical and at times it's frustrating because you're talking to thin air," says Cardellini. "But the great thing about it is in the second movie, we know what the dog's going to look like. We know what the star of the movie's going to look like. Because, the first time through, we had no idea. And, you know, he is the star of the film and you have no idea what he's going to look like or how the voice and the animation will come together. So it was great to know that it would work with us in the scene with him and that kids would really respond to it."
Comedic performances such as Lillard's seldom get the critical praise they deserve, though they are often more difficult than the toughest dramatic scenes. "Like I say, it's a really hard job. In the first five minutes, I think you forget that there's no dog there. The amount of commitment and energy it takes to maintain that relationship when the star of the movie isn't there, it's a tough job. It's a family movie for kids; I'm playing a cartoon character. I don't think anyone really notices. I don't think I should have been nominated. I do wish that people gave it more credit. It's a selfish thing. I don't think it gets any credit. I think people look at that and go whatever. They don't care. But I think it's the toughest job I've ever had. Doing that is a lot harder than a straight comedy or a straight drama for that matter. Comedy is intricately harder than drama."
If Scooby 2 hits like the first one did, it's likely that the series will continue. Cardellini says she'd be willing to throw on the orange sweater again. "If it's a great story, definitely. Kids love it. It's unbelievable. I hear some three- and four-year-old kids who can barely speak, I mean they can't speak in complete sentences or full paragraphs and they love to talk about Scooby-Doo. It's fun. It's really a great character. There's not a lot of broad sort of, young and smart, crazy, zany characters that you get to play like this and, for me, I think that's really fun. Especially doing something that's the polar opposite, like ER, to go back and forth, is a great stretch for me."
Cardellini's recent dramatic turn on ER is a rare chance for her to play a character she actually looks like. "The one thing about being on ER that has changed is that I'm more easily recognizable. It's the first time that I've played something where I look like her on the street. So I get recognized a lot more, because I could stand next to the poster of Scooby-Doo and nobody would know it was me."
Playing a cartoon character has its striking advantages, such as wearing the same outfit most every day. "Don't they say that Einstein always wore the same thing? I sort of think of it as her attempt at the Einstein way of thinking where she has this uniform and she wears it every day and then that way she doesn't have to think about it. She can concentrate on her scientific experiments, whatever they may be."
Cardellini had to give back the red jumpsuit, but she has some of Velma's signature wear. "I have one whole costume from the first movie. Well, the first movie was my real hair. The second time I learned my lesson and used the wig. That Velma hairdo is hard to grow out."
During the making of the first Scooby film, no one was quite sure what their audience would ultimately be, as the age range of Scooby-Doo fans is a broad one. By the second film, they have mostly settled on family-friendly, though there is the occasional adult-oriented joke. Lillard talks about this: "The whip-it thing, we just did it as a joke, but it ended up being funny, so they just kept it in. Yeah, we had a lot more of those in the first movie that ended up on the cutting room floor. Which is one of the big differences between the first one and the second one. We knew what we were doing. We were making a family film. I think, at the end of the day, first of all, it made it a better movie, but I think it will actually make it a more successful movie, making it more specific like that."
One thing everyone agreed on for the sequel was that it should be more of a ride, featuring more elaborate action sequences. "It's fun," says Lillard. "It's a fun aspect of it. It's one of the things that, you know, there's the one sequence where he jumps off of the cliff and down the race thing. That was probably the scariest stunt I've ever done just because it's a 20-foot jump and you go up and over and you put a fake trash can lid under your feet. The point of running to the edge and jumping over was just so scary, the little narrow thing, twenty feet up, that was scary..."
Cardellini also got to explore Velma's sensitive side, as she has a bit of a crush on Seth Green's museum curator character. Sharing height among other things, Cardellini and Green have a nice chemistry in the film. "It was easy. He's so open and easy to talk to. He's just very easy to act with [so] that you feel comfortable doing anything, which is the best way to be, especially in a film like this where you should just be having fun and not be inhibited by anything so, he's great to work with."
Much of Velma's pink triangle wielding fan base may not appreciate her romantic turn. "I'm hoping they still hold out hope," Cardellini laughs. "In the first film, we actually toyed with that a bit, but it became more of a children's movie..."
In the first film, Cardellini felt a bit more like an outsider, since much of the cast had previously worked together. This time, like Velma, she was more one of the gang. "It was really good for me, too, because the first time through, Matt and Sarah and Freddie, they knew each other beforehand," Cardellini says of Scooby 1. You know, Matt and Freddie had been in stuff together and so it was nice the second time, because I also knew them. We knew how each other worked and it was easy. It wasn't hard to get back into it at all. ... You know, we have jokes, and we just enjoyed each other. We knew each other and there was a lot of work that you didn't have to do that you had to do on the first one, getting to know people and how they work."
