“He gives it his all, he’s got such a dynamic voice,” Nyong’o says. “He understands all the characters he’s written, and he brings it. He was my scene partner, all the scene partners that I needed.” He also helped bridge the gap between Nyong’o and the other performers in the film, which was crucial to understanding Roz’s character.
“There was a line that Roz says, a turn of phrase she uses, but I remember saying we needed to figure out where she had learned it from. So that turn of phrase was given to Fink [the fox played by Pedro Pascal] earlier in the movie,” Nyong’o reveals. “When we were shooting that scene for Roz, I asked to hear the recording of Pedro Pascal doing it so that I could be informed by his inflection. I enjoyed that process of figuring out ways for Roz to adapt to this thing we experience as empathy.”
While Roz learns a new language throughout the movie, Nyong’o is also aware the same is true for the youngest members of the audience. “They unabashedly have access to rage and fear and glee and euphoria. They have big feelings and understand big feelings in a way that we shy away from as adults.”
Nyong’o, Sanders, and the animators worked to make sure that the language of the film remained accessible to children—which wasn’t necessarily the same as simplifying it.
“The choice of language was really important so that we did not alienate children with the breadth of vocabulary,” she recalls. “We didn’t want to dumb down the script because this is an opportunity for children to pick up new language. What was so fascinating was how the animators took care of making it understandable for children through their use of expression. There was the language of the page, the inflection put on it by the performer, and the expression the animators brought to it, all working together.”
The Wild Robot was a unique experience for Nyong’o, but she still has new things she wants to try.