Exclusive: ‘The Twits’ Director Phil Johnston on Animating Roald Dahl’s Unapologetically Hateful Couple

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A word of warning to young kids who decide to take a chance on Netflix’s new animated feature The Twits: It’s about two of the nastiest, meanest and (yikes!) smelliest people in the world, so beware! But that’s exactly what the late British writer Roald Dahl (1916-1990) loved about these characters and what drew Oscar-nominated writer-director-producer Phil Johnston (writer on Wreck-It-Ralph, Zootopia and Ralph Breaks the Internet) to the project! In fact, Dahl, whose popular children’s books have been adapted into popular movies such as Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Fantastic Mr. Fox and Wonka, never shied away from unpleasant characters and dark storylines.

The new CG-animated feature, which is one of the final projects completed by Jellyfish Pictures before it shut down due to financial troubles, centers on Mr. and Mrs. Twit, the dreadful owners of a dangerous amusement park, and the two sweet orphans and community of magical animals who band together to stop their evil ways. The labor-intensive project features the voices of Margo Martindale, Johnny Vegas, Natalie Portman, Emilia Clarke, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Jason Mantzoukas, Alan Tudyk, Nicole Byer and Mark Proksch. It also features three original songs written and performed by David Byrne and an end title song co-written and performed by Byrne and Hayley Williams.

We had the chance to chat with Phil Johnston a few weeks before the film’s release on Netflix, and here’s what the talented filmmaker shared with us:

 

Animation Magazine: Congratulations on the debut of The Twits on Netflix after many years of hard work. This is quite a departure from your previous work at Disney. Can you tell us how you and this Roald Dahl story found each other?

Phil Johnston: Back in 2019, when I was still at Disney, they approached me to adapt Dahl’s book as an animated series. I wanted to try something completely different, dark and weird, which I couldn’t do at Disney. I told them I’ll do The Twits because it’s a slight little book with basically no story about these two reprehensible main characters. I thought it sounded perfect, because then I can build a world around them. The project actually started as a limited series. We had done six of the eight half-hour episodes in full animatic form, and David Byrne had written the music. We were all cruising along and feeling great, and then about two years or so into the project, we were unceremoniously canceled. However, at the time there was an independent film division within Netflix Animation, and we got the OK to reimagine the series as a feature, and that’s how we ended up here!

So, in this weird way, it created the sort of idiosyncratic structure and tone, because we had all these disparate elements that came together in a new way. There are no two films that have the same journey, and this one has been crazy, but it has also been one of the most creatively satisfying things I have worked on. I have absolutely loved working with [the creative team] on this movie.

 

 

I read in one of your previous interviews that you have always been a fan of Dahl’s work. Can you elaborate on that?

You know, I had two favorite movies when I was a kid: One, for some bizarre reason, was On Golden Pond, and the other one was Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder. It was so dark, so weird and so mean, and had such sharp teeth. As a kid, it made me feel a little naughty watching it. I would get the soundtrack album from the library I went to as a kid and listen to it over and over again, and that whole terrifying scene through the tunnel on the boat, all those memories are still vivid in my mind.

So, yes, Dahl’s books — their comedy is mean, and the world is bad to children, so you learn resilience and fighting. You learn that the world isn’t fair and the deck is sometimes stacked against you. I just related to that, and these stories had a special place in my heart … This story, especially, is just naughty, and I felt it uses these two people to tell a strange, grotesque story, which is oddly enough appropriate for today’s world.

 

How did you end up working with Jellyfish Pictures to produce the animation?

We actually tested three vendors. Jellyfish was based in the U.K., and they have an affinity towards Dahl. They just got it. They were the least experienced for the three we tested, but I liked something about their approach. They were willing to try things that were unusual. The team was all over the world. The main production team was based in Los Angeles. I was based in Vancouver. Our animation director, Jack Kasprzak, was in L.A. Jellyfish studio was in London, and we worked with the Vancouver studio as well. At one time, early on in production, we had artists on five continents working on the movie.

 

Did having two very unlikable characters at the center of the movie prove challenging at times?

I can read you my pitch from 2020: “I’m attracted to reprehensible characters with horrid judgment who tend to be their own worst enemies! Characters who smell but are unaware or unconcerned with their body odor. Self-awareness is a foreign concept to them! Every time I’ve written a character like this, it’s been a struggle to redeem them. Redemption, after all, is the stuff of family entertainment! Blessedly, it’s not the stuff of the Twits. They are unredeemable, and that’s the point.”

I remember telling this to the artists repeatedly: “The Twits don’t change. They’re terrible, and we need to accept that.” We need to be aware of the fact that some people simply don’t change and that became the point. It was really more their story when the project was a series, as opposed to the kids who took a bigger role in the movie. I couldn’t have unredeemable main characters anywhere else, so that’s why it was fun and interesting to me. Of course, we did get notes, and Netflix has gone through a lot of iterations and multiple leadership and staff changes, so it has been a journey!

 

 

The film’s visual style is worlds apart from your past movies!

As I was writing the first script, I put together a collection of visual references and almost none of them came from animated films. I didn’t want to taint anyone with previous animated movies so that it would be completely original. I was chasing that idea about what makes reprehensible characters appealing, and I think it’s about looking for human emotions underneath it all. For example, in the case of Mrs. Twit, I encouraged the artists to find the sadness and regret in the character. Just think of the characters actress Melissa McCarthy plays, for example. They are always angry, but you feel this great empathy towards them. You really embrace the human emotion behind the grotesque behavior.

Mr. Twit is very insecure. He hides behind this gigantic, weird beard. He’s quick to anger, but he also believes that he’s better than anyone else. People like that put up effigies of themselves all over the place. You can point to our world today and find examples of this type of man. That was our goal without naming names. We also knew that the world was stacked against the children in the movie, but they had to be curious, smart and imaginative — and even a little bit naughty. They could be angry and petulant at times.

In terms of pulling references, I love the work of visual artist Travis Louie. The single biggest reference was from the live-action movies of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children. In those movies, the edges of the frame are always crowded and chaotic, but you can still focus on the characters in the middle of the frame.

One thing I didn’t want was the Twits to be portrayed as “trailer trash.” We needed to subvert that. We needed to instill in the artists that the Twits are inventive and smart. They’re also complete chaos agents. Let’s not make it so disgusting that it’s unappealing. We wanted to create a world that was unusual. Their house is windowless — that’s a big part of the book. So, their house could be anything as long as it was windowless. I wanted the town to echo a fictionalized Midwestern town, which is similar to where I grew up.

 

 

You talked a bit about the difficulties of shortening the project from a four-hour miniseries to a 98-minute-long feature. What were some of the other challenging aspects?

Looking back, I think there was an element of building the parachute as you’re tumbling from the plane towards the ground. There wasn’t time for proper development when you’re starting with the blank page and going, “OK, what might this be like here?” It was simply go! While I was writing the script with our co-writer, Meg Favreau, we were also in the early stages of production, so it was a massive challenge. We prevised the entire movie. Our director of cinematography, Todd Jansen, worked really closely with the storyboard artists. That was something that probably saved us, because we were able to visualize so much of what it was going to look like in advance. It’s just easier for executives to be able to picture what something’s going to look like as opposed to just having boards.

 

What do you hope audiences will remember from The Twits?

You know, the movie is about empathy and not giving in to hatred and small-mindedness as much as the world can be very cruel. A lot of the people who are running [the world] are childish; they use playground taunts from on high. I think kids need to know that’s not the way we need to live. We need to try to understand each other and not become “twits!” That’s what I hope people will take from it. Of course, it’s silly and funny and all the other things kids would want from a movie, but the basic message is “Don’t be a twit!”

 

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The Twits premieres October 17 on Netflix.