“Watching the men watch Angelina record her part was amazing,” Jenson recalls. “Everyone around her falls under her spell. They couldn’t help but become as mesmerized by Angelina as Oscar is by the alluring Lola.”
Jolie says she was pleased to be asked to do her first animated role, noting, “I just love animated films and I always thought it would be cool to work on one, especially now that I have a little boy of my own. It made me really happy, and I am so excited for him to see this movie.”
Lola isn’t the only one who sees an opportunity to capitalize on Oscar’s newfound wealth and fame. Sykes, the owner of the Whale Wash where Oscar and Angie work, immediately surfaces to claim a percentage as Oscar’s new manager.
In a rare acting turn, famed director Martin Scorsese voices the role of Sykes, a puffer fish with a rather distinctive pair of “eyebrows.” “Hey, others may criticize, but Sykes sees Oscar’s good fortune as an opportunity,” says Scorsese, defending his character’s questionable motives. “He wants to take Oscar under his wing, or under his fin in this case, which is a little hard because he’s a puffer fish, and when he gets upset he inflates and his voice gets very high and he talks very fast. I can’t imagine where they got that from or why Jeffrey Katzenberg thought of me for that role…”
Katzenberg relates, “I’ve known Marty for 25-plus years, and I’m always amazed by the unique way he talks. He talks very, very fast—he can say almost anything in just a few seconds. His mind goes so fast and he’s actually able to speak things as fast as he can think them. So I went to him one day and said, ‘Marty, you have probably never realized this, but you speak in this incredibly unique way, and it’s actually pretty funny—funny in a good way…’ I finally showed him this picture of Sykes, the puffer fish, and he fell over laughing.”
“Jeffrey said he wanted a meeting with me. He came in and started explaining the story to me, but at first I didn’t know where he was going with it all,” Scorsese remembers. “I thought maybe he wanted me to consult on the film or something. Basically, he ended up saying, ‘Marty, you have a little girl now. Why don’t you make a movie you could actually show to her?’ So, with that heartrending plea, I found myself embroiled in this project,” he laughs. “But it was a really great experience, and I think it turned out to be a great movie for kids and adults. Going in, I didn’t really understand how animation worked. It’s a daunting process; it’s not one or two recording sessions; you have to keep going back and hammering at it. It takes a long time to do—at least two years—but over that period, you really get the feeling of watching a film come alive.”
In one of his recording sessions for the “What’s what” scene between Sykes and Don Lino, Scorsese got to work with his longtime collaborator and friend Robert De Niro, which the “Shark Tale” directors say added so much to the characters’ repartee. “To have De Niro and Scorsese together, that was pure gold,” Bergeron states.
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