Facing off against the Cortez Family is an outrageously inventive and outlandishly ambitious enemy: Fegan Floop, the mastermind who masquerades as a children's television show host. Secretly, Floop and his egg-headed sidekick Minion are working to destroy the OSS — by mutating its best agents into floppy-headed Fooglies and creating invincible Robot Kids to rule the world.
Fegan Floop is portrayed in all his many shadings of magic and menace by stage and screen star Alan Cumming. Cumming found Floop to be an inimitable character — half a dreamy, magical "Willy Wonka" type, but half "Darth Vader." "He's a mad, child-like creative genius who has turned his powers to an evil use," explains Cumming. "I love that he's a children's television show host and you expect him to be one thing and he turns out to be something else — something dark and a little devilish. Or so it seems."
But the best part about Floop for Cumming was getting to live in his world. "I love Floop's Castle," he admits. "I love all the big, colorful wacky things inside it. I love that he can lie on a cloud in the Virtual Reality Room. I wanted to buy up all this stuff and take it home with me."
Cumming continues: "I also love all the gadgets and I know kids will love them too. It's so rare for kids to get to do the things adults do in action films — fly planes, take out the baddies, go underwater and be the heroes. But this time, it's their show and Robert Rodriguez let's them be heroes, while still being kids."
Cumming also gets the film's one musical number — a song Danny Elfman wrote for the "Floop's Fooglies" television show. "I'm friends with Danny, so I knew it would be a great song," says Cumming. "It wonderful and weird and fun to sing — although a bit daunting to bring Danny's incredible creativity to life."
For the kids in the film, Cumming was a real live introduction to just how playful and funny adults can be. "He was wild and weird and hilarious," observes Alexa Vega. "He would just start singing in the middle of a sentence. He's a really fun guy."
Ultimately, Floop must answer to Mr. Lisp, a wealthy financier who is funding Floop's world-changing inventions. Lisp is played by Robert Patrick, who previously played the consummate bad-guy in "T2: Judgment Day" as the morphing T-100 cyborg. "Lisp is the money behind the madness," says Patrick. "I was really excited to play him, especially because I was just blown away by the script. It's one of the few films I've seen that's written so kids will have a great time and yet there's a really smart adult perspective to it, with the whole love story between Gregorio and Ingrid and also between the parents and their kids."
Patrick plays one of the most doggedly adult characters in the film, a guy who has no idea how to have fun. "Lisp is a very non-creative guy," explains Patrick. "He's all about money and numbers, investments and results. He's very easily frustrated, of course, and he doesn't have much patience for Floop because he's too impractical."
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