HOW WE BROUGHT DORA TO LIFE
GO BEHIND THE SCENES OF HOMEGROWN HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTER DORA AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD
Standing inside soundstage nine at Movie World, it feels like I am in a rainforest rather than a film studio. It’s cool and humid, and there’s a soft light filtering down through a vibrant green landscape.
The ground is soft and leaves and sticks crunch under my feet. Almost anywhere you look, you’d think you were outside rather than under the roof of the largest soundstage in the Southern Hemisphere.
Built for the production of Marvel’s Thor:
Ragnarok, this cavernous space houses a 130m-long, 11m-tall screen printed with panoramic images from the Gold Coast hinterland.
The temperate rainforests of Tamborine Mountain and Tallebudgera are a surprisingly good stand-in for the jungles of South America for the adventures of a nowteenage Dora the Explorer in Paramount’s big-screen adaptation of Nickelodeon’s beloved bilingual animated preschool series.
Dora and the Lost City of Gold is the latest in a long line of Hollywood blockbusters lured to the Sunshine State by our worldclass facilities and crew, tax incentives and stunning natural locations.
“We needed somewhere that has a vague feeling of the west coast of America and the jungle, and Queensland has both,” director James Bobin says.
Just as much detail can be found in the overwater house Dora shares with her parents, played by Michael Pena and Eva Longoria.
Built from scratch at the end of a quiet Oxenford street by production designer Dan Hennah and his team, the home is full of artefacts, ancient maps and postcards from the family’s travels.
Four of Movie World’s soundstages host more fantastical set pieces as well, including an ancient aqueduct, 3m-tall flowers and a fabled Incan city of gold.
“I have kids and I know they watch
movies again and again and they learn the lines and know everything about it,” Bobin says.
“One of the things that is very important to me is the detail. That’s why the sets are very elaborate and complex. I know kids watch images very carefully.”
Dressed in a jacket, jumper and tie, the British filmmaker looks like he was transported to sunny Queensland directly from his native Hampshire.
Cutting his teeth as a director on the adult TV comedies Da Ali G Show and Flight of the
Conchords, Bobin may initially seem like an odd choice to helm a family adventure film.
But the 11-time Emmy nominee has already successfully translated his quirky sense of humour to two other family favourites: The Muppets and Alice in Wonderland.
“I’m British so we have an amalgam of humour and you grow up with it in your life, you use it every day, and it’s part of your DNA,” he says.
“You don’t think of yourself as having an unusual sense of humour but you sort of do and it colours everything you do.
“As a director you make thousands of choices every day and it ends up inevitably imbuing whatever you’re making. I’m not conscious of it but it’s there for sure.”
He also has another important qualification — his daughter Maddy.
“My daughter is 11 and she grew up watching Dora, so I know Dora pretty well,” he says.
“I give her the script and I show her early cuts because it’s important what she thinks. She’s very good at calling things out that are not quite right.”
Bobin is acutely aware he’s not only reimagining a childhood favourite for young girls around the world, but also an important Latina role model.
“I love the optimism of Dora. She’s universally beloved. Anywhere I go and talk to people about Dora everyone is positive about her because she’s so positive. She’s like Kermit in The Muppets,” he says.
“It’s such a great responsibility. I’ve made three family pictures so far and I always try to make them movies you can watch together with your kids and it’s something you enjoy but for different reasons.
“Dora is very important culturally and in the film she speaks Spanish with her family sometimes. We go in and out; I’m not a man (who’s) scared of subtitles in a movie, and we have a lot of Spanish in the movie and a lot of Quechua (an indigenous Peruvian language) in the movie later on. It’s a movie that understands where she’s from.”
In Dora and the Lost City of Gold ,a16year-old Dora leaves her jungle home for the first time to go study with her cousin Diego at his American high school.
But she and her new friends are quickly drawn back to the jungle on a quest to save her parents and solve the mystery behind a lost city of gold.
“If you’re going to do a movie like this that would appeal to everybody it helps if she’s a little bit older. Are you the same person at six that you are at 16? I think Dora in this movie kind of is and that’s her great charm,” Bobin says.
“She’s grown up by herself and, as a consequence, the world hasn’t put her down, particularly in terms of being a woman.
“Dora is incredibly capable, very brave and very clever and no one’s told her she can’t do anything.
“When she comes to the real world she meets everyone else of her own age group who’ve lived through social media and peer pressure.
“That girl in the real world is a very interesting idea to me… it leads to comedy because she doesn’t understand how the world works. It’s very charming and you like her for it.”
Casting a leading lady was crucial and
Bobin says he knew Isabela Moner was his Dora as soon as she walked into her audition.
“I knew the moment she walked into frame in the audition,” he says.
“When she smiles she lights the screen up. We found her very early and she was great straight away.”
It’s a role the American-Peruvian actor felt destined to play, considering she grew up with the nickname Dora.
“I really related to her (Dora) considering she spoke both English and Spanish,” Moner says.
“Then growing up I had this haircut at a young age so everyone called me Dora. When they came out with the (idea for the) movie I was like, ‘I have to do this’.
“They really did a great job of developing the character to the point where she has a whole history of what happened between when she was five to now and why she is this way. Psychologically, they gave me a lot to work with.”
Watching her film a scene in the indoor jungle at Movie
World with
Aussie actors
Madeleine
Madden and
Nicholas
Coombe, who play her school mates, and Mexican soap star Eugenio Derbez, who plays the mysterious Alejandro, Moner appears relaxed and at ease.
Helming a blockbuster film at the age of 18 may sound daunting but the Cleveland-raised actor has spent much of her life on stage and screen.
Inspired by the likes of Judy Garland and Shirley Temple, she made her theatre debut aged six and by 10 she was starring
opposite Ricky Martin in a Broadway production of Evita.
In film and TV, Moner has played everything from a moody teenager to the daughter of a cartel boss and she’s no stranger to Dora, having voiced the character Kate in the animated spin-off Dora and Friends: Into the City!.
Playing the real-life Dora is her biggest role so far and a demanding one. According to Bobin she’s in “every single scene”.
“I sometimes forget how big of a movie this is,” she says.
“I don’t like to think about it — that I’m carrying this whole movie on my shoulders.
“It helps I have Eugenio. He’s a great person and mentor to have.”
The film proudly features a star-studded Latino cast including Pena, Longoria, Derbez, Oscar-nominee Adriana Barraza as Dora’s grandmother (or Abuelita), Benicio Del Toro as the voice of Swiper and Danny Trejo as the voice of Boots.
“It’s so awesome to have a bunch of Latinos who have been truly authentically themselves throughout their whole careers to step into this movie and give it a good reputation,” Moner says.
“They just lift it up. This is a huge deal for the Latino community.”
There are subtle local touches Australian audiences will pick up on too, such as cameos by Home and Away’s Pia Miller, Damien Garvey and comedian Matt Okine.
“Dora’s a thing people know and like already, but I want to add some jokes,” Bobin says.
“You can pay a respectful nod to the origins of it, but you bring your own thing to it at the same time.”
I LOVE THE OPTIMISM OF DORA. SHE’S UNIVERSALLY BELOVED