BOXING MATCH
Ben Kingsley channels his inner Shakespearean villain for The Boxtrolls
Laika Studio executives thought Ben Kingsley would rebuff an offer to play the villain in The Boxtrolls. When Kingsley was finally asked, the Oscar-honoured thespian accepted the job almost immediately. Laika and Kingsley both seem pleased with the arranged union. “It’s so releasing,” says the 70-year-old, referring to his first major voice job.
In the stop-motion animated fable based on the Alan Snow book Here Be Monsters!, Kingsley’s Archibald Snatcher is a social-climbing manipulator focused on eliminating boxtrolls that live below the streets of Cheesebridge.
While the village’s upper-class dolts dwell on cheese varieties, Snatcher and his henchmen set in motion a plan to gain power through devious deeds that begin with the boxtroll eradication.
Single-minded yet sincere, Kingsley holds court with these proclamations:
ACCEPT DARK HUMOUR AS FAMILY APPROPRIATE
“It’s Grimm’s Fairy Tales, really, and it’s also Charles Dickens, who was read by families,” notes Kingsley of The Boxtrolls’ wit.
EMBRACE CHEESY IRONY
In the movie, Snatcher covets cheese but is deathly allergic to it. “The cheese is a metaphor for power,” Kingsley says. “The gods looked down on Snatcher and said, ‘The worst thing we can do to you and your community is make you king.’ ”
BE PRONE TO SPEAKING
Eventually, Kingsley decided to do his voice work from a prone position in the recording studio. “I asked the chaps if there are seats that can go back,” he says. “I had to recline in order to be completely relaxed and come out in the right place.”
EMBRACE THE DARK SIDE
Most recently, Kingsley played The Mandarin in Iron Man 3, and most notably earned an Academy Award nomination for his psychopathic criminal Don Logan in Sexy Beast. His early rapscallion education arrived during his stint in repertory at the Royal Shakespeare Company. “I became familiar with how that wonderful author put together the wounds inside,” he says of the many Shakespearean bad guys he played on stage. His Sexy Beast portrayal of Don Logan was a continuation of lessons learned: “If you slam a door in his face, he will dynamite it down.”
LOOK TO THE FUTURE
Kingsley is the voice of the black panther Bagheera in Jon Favreau’s live-action-animated redo of The Jungle Book. He’s also the voice of the dragon in the video release Dragonheart 3. “Things are diversifying for actors,” Kingsley says. “The number of avenues through which we can work is exploding.”