Finding fatherhood | canada.com

By Jay Stone

Albert Brooks remembers the first time he saw the animated movie Finding Nemo. He brought his four-year-old son, who fled the theatre in a panic.

Brooks, of course, is the voice of Marlin, the clownfish who whose offspring Nemo is captured in the Great Barrier Reef and taken to the aquarium in a dentist?s office in Sydney, Australia. Dad?s mission to rescue him ? with the help of many other memorable sea creatures ? are the backbone of the Pixar movie that won the 2003 Oscar as best animated film.

It?s a role that captures Brook?s comic persona of a neurotic worrier, but there?s a reason for that. Marlin, after all, has seen his wife and the other children devoured by sharks. He may be overprotective, but as Brooks says, ?Look what happened to this fish. He?s got his family eaten in the first three minutes of the film. If that happened to you in your own life, you?d be probably as bad as Marlin. You?d be worse.?

When Finding Nemo first opened, and Brooks took his own son to the premiere at the El Capitan theatre in Los Angeles, ?he freaked out,? Brooks recalls. ?He ran out of the theatre after about 30 minutes. Because he processed this in a very strange way. The mother was killed, the brothers and sisters were killed, it sounded like his dad, it looked like a fish. He didn?t know if he was Nemo, he got mixed up.?

Brooks?s son is almost 14 now, and when they go to see the new version, Finding Nemo 3-D, Brooks is looking forward to a calmer experience.

?I don?t expect he?ll run out this time, unless he wants to text.?

The re-release ? which comes just as word has leaked out of a sequel ? is part of a series of Disney projects in which animated classics, including The Lion King and the upcoming Monsters Inc., are being converted to 3-D.

?I felt so one-dimensional,? Brooks says about the process. ?It?s about time you can see all of me.?

Brooks has had success in serious films (Taxi Driver and last year?s Drive), but he is best known for his roles in anxious comedies (Lost In America, Mother). It?s that character who informs the desperate dad in Finding Nemo.

?They do voices first and they photograph you,? Brooks says. ?And I think the animators use your expressions ? I don?t know that I?m quite as panicked as Marlin all the time, but I?ll say that I?ve been known to worry. Let?s just put it that way.?

He adds that was once an overprotective dad himself, but now that his children are older ? as well as a son, he has a 12?-year-old daughter ? ?I sort of drive them as far away as I can and hope they don?t get back to the house. Now I?m underprotective.?

Brooks has lent his distinctive voice ? a sort of gravel whine ?to several animated films, including The Simpsons Movie, in which he voiced the villain. It?s a kind of acting he likes, even though it?s exhausting.

?You enjoy it because you can look terrible and go unshaven and not feel well and it?s fine,? he says. ?You don?t have to get a good night?s sleep to do voice work. If a camera?s pointing at you, you sort of have to physically be there, but if your arm hurts, you can still do a great day?s work with your voice. That part?s appealing.?

The hard part is the energy it takes.

?You want it to be real, but it?s sort of elevated a little bit. It?s almost hyper-reality, and in the case of Marlin, where you have this character who?s constantly worried, five hours in a row of that, I lost 10 pounds during these recording sessions. It is amazing. You go home and two hours later you can?t go out of a chair. It?s a kind of energy that is different from other kinds of acting. And especially in this kind of character ? it was always at this height of panic.?

Brooks is back as a different kind of dad this Christmas, playing Paul Rudd?s father in This Is 40, the sequel to the Judd Apatow comedy Knocked Up. He says the character is as far removed as possible from Marlin.

?This is a dad who lives off his son. This is a dad who?s the kid. This is a dad who?s a deadbeat guy who can?t make a dime. This is really role reversal. If anything, Paul Rudd?s Marlin in this.?

And what does that make him? ?I?m a deadbeat Nemo, if I have to make comparisons.?

2012-09-11T03:00:00-05:00

Source: http://o.canada.com/2012/09/06/finding-fatherhood/

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