'The Road to El Dorado', Character Designer, Carlos Grangel

0:00Carlos GrangelI'm gonna share something. It's a secret, okay? But…

0:03Jawad MirSure

0:03Carlos Grangel... One day I received a call and said, "Jeffrey wants to meet you tomorrow at the Four Seasons, having... In LA, in Beverly Hills, having breakfast, and it's his birthday, by the way." And I went there, and, "Happy birthday, Jeffrey. What do you...?" 7:00 AM, you know? Jeffrey always had these very early meetings. "I wanna propose you to direct El Dorado because, you know, no longer we have Wolfin." And wrong question, you know? I said, "You may gain a bad director, and lose a very decent character designer, you know?"

0:47Jawad MirAwesome. Well, thank you so much for joining again. It was good last time to chat about The Corpse Bride, and a little bit about, Hotel Transylvania. And now we're here to talk about, DreamWorks' second traditional animation, but third release, Ro… The Road to El Dorado, starring Kevin Kline and Kenny…

1:08Carlos GrangelKenny Branagh

1:09Jawad Mir... Branagh. Kenny Branagh, yeah. Yeah, I remember when it came out,.. I'll just give you a little bit of overview of myself…

1:17Carlos GrangelPlease

1:17Jawad Mir... Of my perception, then I'll ask you about your role. I remember when I saw the trailer, it was, it was interesting. I mean, I was, you know, attracted to it. But I think what sort of fell through with the film, for me personally, was it was trying to find an audience in young people and older people…

1:36Jawad Mir... With the humor in older people, and animation in the younger people. It was too cartoony. Which was fine by me. I mean, there's some of the, some of the sequences were beautiful, especially the waterfall, and a whole bunch of other stuff. But overall, still, it was a pretty good film. I saw it just in the last week again.

1:52Jawad MirIt was better now than I probably saw it back then. Almost 20, 24 years ago. But yeah, that's just my thinking of it. You know, tell me about your involvement and all that stuff. It's, it's been 24 years. Yeah, it came out in 2000.

2:09Carlos GrangelI… it's true. It's, it's one of the films I enjoy it a lot because, believe it or not, that film, it started pre-production in 1996. We were working on Prince of Egypt and, there was a small crew with Fred Waterman and Nicolas Marlet, my good friend and great character designer, working on it. And we didn't know that it was going to happen because it was, for a while, for two or three long years, in pre-production, really early on. Actually, without any director involved, you know, at that time. Until, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and I guess Spielberg, decided, "Okay, we are gonna do it." And then, Wolfin from Disney, that m… phenomenal animator, and storyboard artist and director came in, and David Silverman from The Simpsons…

3:11Carlos Grangel... Joined it. And I was asked by Bonnie Radford, which was one of the producers, "Hey, you are a Spaniard. You are a Spanish. Do you wanna work on El Dorado?" And I remember saying, "Oh, I don't wanna remind, I don't wanna remind that time, you know, where Spaniards were there with the sword, and then the cross in the other hand, you know? Just pretending to colonize, and just looking for the gold, you know?" So, but she said, "Better than you that you can bring the information from your country and search in your country." Those days, you know, from Hernán Cortés, and Pizarro, and all these greats, at that time, conquerors, you know? Now we, now, and at the time we were working on El Dorado, I already thought was a genocide, you know what I'm saying? So it was hard for me to say yes. But obviously, when they green-light it finally, you know, I'm talking about 1997, something like...

4:15Carlos GrangelJust right, or 19… early 1998, when The Prince of Egypt came out, I said yes.

4:24Jawad MirTransylvania came out in December 1998, so it was probably…

4:27Carlos Grangel'98, yeah

4:27Jawad Mir... Yeah.

4:28Carlos GrangelSo early 1998, we were asked to, "Hey, do you really wanna work on Shrek or El Dorado?" And I said, "I go to a Shr… to, I go to El Dorado." And my friend Carter Goodrich went to Shrek, the great illustrator and designer. And then I, we joined that crew, which it was Nicolas Marlet, and then a very young, great designer called Tony Siruno. So we were the three main designers working on it for at least two years, from the green light. And I remember they brought Conrad, Didier Conrad from France, who is actually, making the comic strips of Asterix now, these.

5:15Carlos GrangelDoing like kind of Uderzo style. And Didier was fun to work. James Baxter helped on the designs, but they never went there or with Didier's Conrad's designs. They stick more with Nicolas Marlet and my designs for the two years that we finalize it, those characters. And I tell you why it was fun for me. Because it's cartoony, and this is what I love. I love cartoons, you know? I love Hotel T., I love Corpse Bride, I love El Dorado, even Madagascar or Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your... I like cartoons. I like to make cartoons. I don't, I don't do well on realistic stuff, even if I work on Spirit or Prince of Egypt. But it's, it's harder for me, way harder, you know? So I like something... And El Dorado had that comedy touch… But I think Katzenberg was very ambitious. He wanted the adults and the kids to be all liking it, and that's why you point it. You were for one or you were for the others.

6:17Carlos GrangelWhen you try to put the net and catch all the audiences and all the audience, it doesn't seems to work for me, you know? So the gags and the s… the sketches were a bit sassy. It was, it was a bit for adults, you know? I didn't, I don't wanna go into sex reference, but, Tulio and Miguel were the big guys kind of, very macho kind of, always making jokes with the natives and Chel. And on the film, there is a point that they are talking about pesetas, like the currency, and at that time there were doubloons and escut… escudos, you know? So there is that mistake. Pesetas came in, on the 19th century in Spain. There are some mistakes, big mistakes. I don't know if they were the writers. I worked first with Ted Elliott as a writer, and Terry Rossio.

7:14Carlos Grangel... Hans Zimmer was there many times. I met Hans from The Prince of Egypt, but was one of the usual suspects. We started working with Will Finn and, David Silverman. I had a great time with these two directors. Both, they were replaced by, Don Paul and Bibo, and I did well with the other two. Believe me, I swear to God, from one day to another we hear that, David Silverman is gonna go. And actually he wasn't at the studio already, you know? I don't know what happened. He was replaced. David was a very funny guy, with lots of gags. Really, exactly, coming from The Simpsons, you know? Really cool things. And, Will Finn was actually a very funny and decent man, decent man, and really trying to please Jeffrey too, which is a very narrow line, you know?

8:26Carlos GrangelBut they were both replaced, unfortunately, because I think they were doing well. M… at least, we could see fun on the stories and we were having great time on the, going to the pitching on the storyboarding. And, so the, from one week to another, they were gone, you know? And I'm gonna share something. It's a secret, okay? But

8:52Jawad MirSure

8:54Carlos Grangel... One day I received a call and said, "Jeffrey wants to meet you tomorrow at the Four Seasons, having, in LA, in Beverly Hills, having breakfast. And it's his birthday, by the way." And I went there. "Happy birthday, Jeffrey. What do you..." 7:00 AM, you know? Jeffrey always had these very early meetings. "I wanna propose you to direct El Dorado because, you know, no longer we have Will Finn." And wrong question, you know? I said, "You may gain a bad director, and lose a very decent character designer, you know?" So I wasn't for it because I always learn in life you have to be sure, more when you work with these guys in Hollywood, that you can achieve the job and make it at the highest performance, you know? When I saw, I saw directors coming and lasting three month at DreamWorks, six month, one year, one year and a half. It's incredible what Simon Wells and Steve Hickner and Brenda Chapman did on Prince of Egypt.

9:57Carlos GrangelThey stood the entire movie. But the other movies were different. So I knew, I knew Jeffrey was the big guy there. And I said, "Thank Jeffrey for think of me." And it's, it's, it's a huge compliment. Probably he thought, "Oh, you have skills of leadership." Yeah, but doesn't applies to directing. Directing you have to, you have to be a storyteller. You have to know, you know? And, I, thank God I didn't made the mistake. And he said, "Okay, the next guy is gonna say yes. He's Bibo, so I have a meeting at 8:00." So he was having meetings with, "You got the first shot. You said n… you don't think you can do it, you know? If you wanna do it's 24/7." I said, "I know. This is what is character design, for 24/7 each week, you know? No holidays." And, he said, "Okay, fine." So the moment, Bibo was announced one week later, obviously he came from France and was offered to direct El Dorado, and he went for it.

11:02Carlos GrangelFine. And I had no problems with him. I don't think he knows they w… I was offered. But anyway, I stood working on the designs, which I enjoy the best, you know? This is what I know how to do best, as my belief. And that's, that little secret, it's for you. Probably he thought, Jeffrey thought, "He is an Spanish guy. He's gonna do okay. He knows about the history." anyway, long story short, that happened, and I kept working for more than a year with Bibo. And Don Paul, who was, one of the top guys on the special effects on Prince of Egypt, and that came from Disney, wonderful guy, sweet guy, that these two guys replaced, Don Paul and Bibo Bergeron replaced, David Silverman and Will Finn, you know, on the film. So we work, Nico, myself, Tony Siruno, and myself for at least two years, two years and a half. And it was fun.

12:03Carlos GrangelIt was fun, you know? Because after Prince of Egypt, you know, I went and I help on Antz for a while. And, jumping on El Dorado, it was refreshing Because the other one was going to be a spirit. And a spi… a spirit was hard. It was extremely hard, as I told you on the first interview, so. So that's, that's the story. Then I remember from day one, Nico Toni and I put in these big lineups with lots of characters. The Mayans and the Spaniards, making these wonderful lineups full of hundreds of characters, and presenting it to both directors, David and Will. And, they were good people to work because they were responding from day one to that very comical, comic strip kind of style, you know? I would say European, kind of, you know?

13:04Carlos GrangelAnd that was, really beneficial for the movie. We were not involved on storyboarding, but we suggested some names like Altivo, the horse. Because Altivo on the first script was called Lucero. Lucero was a singer in South America. And, I said, "By the way, you put Lucer… you need put Lucero for this singer, correct?" And they said, "No, it has nothing to do. Just the writers put Lucero, you know? Something that shines. Lucero is something that shines." and then Bonnie Ratford, which was one of the producer with Brooke Breton said, "Carlos, do you have any ideas?" I said, "Well, do you want this character to be kind of, the Cor… the Cortez horse, you know? To be kind of, stood that thinks he knows everything? Put him Altivo. He's kind of high, you know? A bit snobby, you know?" So they say, "Oh, Altivo, it's nice. So we'll go with, Altivo."

14:06Carlos GrangelSo despite, we suggested some things, the characters got better and better in animation because then we had these great animators from Prince of Egypt, like, Christophe Serrand, William Salazar, Rodolphe Guenoden, Fabio Lignini, all these, all these great people that came from Amblimation like me and Nico. And then we had the other ones with Duncan McJorrie-Wangs, James Baxter, Kathy, Zielinski, all these supervisors from Disney, you know? So, and more animators that they joined, like Pres Romanillos that came from Disney, that just had worked on Mulan and Tarzan with Glen. So we got all these great people that they wanted to do cartoons, that they were a bit beat up from the Prince of Egypt, you know, style. So I think the joy of these people are making amazing pencil test at the be… very beginning, test… testing the characters.

15:09Carlos GrangelIt got us that ramp up to say, "Oh, those characters, they can really be funny and work with Kenneth Branagh voice and Kevin Kline," you know? And in fact, the animation, it's beautiful in some parts of, or majority, on the major… majority of the movie. But then the art direction was amazing because we had Paul Assain, Ramon Zivic. We had Vicky Jenson, which later, directed, Shrek 2, I believe. We had, we had, Christian Schelewald, the German guy, who is a great art director. We had all these great, Wendell Lubbe work as well. We had these six or seven mega talent. That's why the backgrounds of El Dorado are amazing, you know? Mostly in South Amer… or Central America, you know? But then the Spaniard, the Spanish part too, you know? The sequence with the bull and all that.

16:10Carlos GrangelSo we had all this great, stuff. And then we needed some extra character designs that Patrick Mate, the French, character designer helped us out. We knew Patrick from Balto, and we are back from the films done in Amblin, so it was a good buddy. So we asked him to... I did the version of the bull, but he designed the final bull. Because things were going fast because, Jeffrey really wanted El Dorado the sooner the better on the, on the theaters, you know? Because, the fast track lane started really fast mid-1998, you know? So I don't know if it's any interesting…

16:53Jawad MirYeah.

16:53Carlos Grangel... What they're saying, but…

16:54Jawad MirNo, one other thing. No. This is fantastic. I appreciate you sharing that. Can you hear me?

17:02Carlos GrangelSure.

17:03Jawad MirOkay. I found... Okay, so this is just me speculating, and I could be dead wrong. So I saw, I remember this when this happened, and I had forgotten about it. Recently I saw Atlantis… ... The Lost Empire.

17:19Carlos GrangelYeah.

17:19Jawad MirDisney's Atlantis. I, and I think it came around the same time as Road to El Dorado.

17:24Carlos GrangelThey were around that time.

17:27Jawad MirYeah. And I found, I don't know, was it coincident or what? The, you know, the whole, the second act, like, the second half of the movie, I should say, where you know, meet these characters, like a different world, and they consider you God and…

17:41Jawad Mir... You know, all that. I found that somewhat similarities in both. But having said that, other than that, everything else was totally different. And one of the things I to… loved about Road to El Dorado, like I said, a… and I think you kinda pointed out, was the, were the backgrounds, were the, you know, the character design. Despite the fact that the audience wasn't being found and all that, but it was just very, like you said, cartoony. And I'm a huge fan of traditional animation. I miss it. I really miss it.

18:17Jawad MirYou know, the way it was done in Prince of Egypt and Lion King and all that. But, Hans Zimmer's score there's a specific track which I don't remember. It just has an amazing rhythm and tune to it.

18:31Carlos GrangelYeah.

18:31Jawad MirI thought really was phenomenal.

18:33Carlos GrangelAnd in the, is a, is a, that sound…

18:34Jawad MirAnd it's, it's not something that's talked about.

18:36Carlos GrangelYeah. It's, it's beautiful that s… that soundtrack. It's with some drums, little, and guitar, you know? It's, it's a beautiful... Y… you mean Atlantis or you mean Kingdom of the Sun? When…

18:55Jawad MirKingdom of the Sun. Thank you so much.

18:56Carlos GrangelYeah.

18:57Jawad MirYes. Yeah. Yeah.

18:57Carlos GrangelBecause Atlantis was the other one then designed by John Pomeroy. Yeah. It was…

19:01Jawad MirYes. Yeah.

19:02Carlos GrangelYeah. No, I got it as a Kingdom of the Sun, you know? Yeah.

19:05Jawad MirYeah.

19:05Carlos GrangelKingdom of the Sun, they were the Incans, and we were doing the Mayan. Listen, I don't know what happened, but we always were competing with Disney, with Shark Tale, and then Nemo, and then, Bug's Life, and Ants. And, you know, you should have a conversation with Jeffrey Katzenberg and not me, you know? Because we were…... Always doing that something that someone was doing, you know? I don't, I don't know who was first or second taking the decision, but it's something that I hate because you have so many subjects…

19:42Jawad MirYeah

19:42Carlos Grangel... To work on. I hate when companies are doing the same kind of subject. But yeah, the Road to El Dorado, the backgrounds are beautiful. One of the most beautiful backgrounds I ever worked with. And background artists, you know? And then secondly, the character matches the backgrounds perfectly. It was all…

20:03Jawad MirYes

20:03Carlos Grangel... Cartoony, all exaggerated on the same way. So it, the bond of working with Christian Scheloske and Ramon Zivic and, Paul Azine, and all these people, were very big because we admire each other on... I admire all these guys. Nico too admire these guys, and I admire Nico, and I think he has same feelings, versus me. So we are still very strong friends. So, and then Tony, matched the style too perfectly. But those background artists and our directors and production designers, they were listening, which is very rare because they always wanna do what they think is best. But they were listening to us too, and we were listening to them. So it was an orchestra playing beautifully. And Hans Zimmer was at the studio once a month. Hans Zimmer always had that studio in Santa Monica, which I visited a few times.

21:04Carlos GrangelBut Hans used to come to the DreamWorks lot and work with us in the studio, you know? And, this film, El Dorado, really started, the seed of El Dorado started at the very small studio in, Lakeside in, when Barhan in LA finished the first studio where we started working, where we almost did the entire Prince of Egypt. So then we moved into Glendale, the big studio that was under construction. But basically we started on really very close to Amblin Entertainment, the Steven Spielberg…

21:42Carlos Grangel... Studio in Lakeside, you know? Really close to the Universal lot, you know, rather than... And then obviously animation and everything. Animation testing was done on that studio, and then we moved into the big studio, the current studio of DreamWorks now that, what it has been for the last 20 years, 22 years, 23 years. But the first year and two years, as you say, 24 years ago or 23 years ago, we started on the old studio where The Prince of Egypt happened. So anyway, long story short, it's a beautiful movie just to look at, you know? And then one thing is for sure, we wanted, we didn't want to make caricatures of the Mayas. We wanted to take all the Mayan art, as we did on Prince of Egypt, and take the characters from there, from the pottery of the Mayas, from the paintings in the walls of the Mayas, from the carving, from the sculptures from the Mayas.

22:44Carlos GrangelAnd the background artist did the same with the cenotes, with the pyramids, with the backgrounds, with the jungle. We were really close to what it was. And with the Spaniards, I did the same. I kind of got information from Seville, where they had all the archives, from the conquista years, you know? And I went there and I took information of all books, how those, Spanish armada were dressing the soldiers and everything to make it caricature, but real, you know? I think when you have great reference always works better. Then at that time we had two people, Kelly Kimball, the daughter of Ward Kimball, the great animator, one of the nine old men, that was supplying with drawings and pictures of the time, Inca, Maya, pre-Colombian stuff, and Spanish time. And with Hani Al Masri, this Egyptian guy who was doing sketches too of costumes from the Inca time or Maya time and Spaniard time.

23:52Carlos GrangelSo we had these two sources that they were giving us, or buying books or looking on the internet, printing things. "Hey, Carlos, you may like this thing." "Oh, I didn't know about this one." Is a, is a, i… is a kind of a illustration of Cortés, Hernán Cortés, you know, from the time, you know? And I didn't had that one. So they were supplying with vital information, both of them. And both worked on El Dorado and, they worked on Prince of Egypt, and both worked on, I think, on Shrek and Spirit too, so. So DreamWorks at the time… Was supplying to their artists with the best assets, you know?

24:36Jawad MirRight.

24:37Carlos GrangelWhat now is rush and best assets warranties or at least a faithful movie, you know? That what you are seeing, it's, it's real, you know? That at least it reminds that period, and that's basic for me.

24:57Jawad MirAnd it does remind you of that period. I mean, it d… obviously, you know, we haven't been in that period, but from the books and on all that stuff, it does look very realistic. I wanted to ask you about, you know, character design, work. Kenneth Branagh and Kevin... So basically, a character design, especially the facial, you know, is supposed to match the voice and, voice actor to a certain extent. Like, there needs to be some sort of feature and then similarities. Were Kenneth Branagh and Kevin Kline attached from the very beginning, or were there any other iterations of the character designs based on other voice actors?

25:41Carlos GrangelAt the beginning, we had a list where Kenneth Branagh and Kevin Kline were on the list, but for Tulio, we had Antonio Banderas, too. And it didn't happen because Antonio was working already on Puss in Boots for Kat… for Shrek, okay?

25:57Carlos GrangelSo, but we had Antonio for Tulio, and if you check, Tulio looks closer to Antonio than Kevin Kline, you know? Kind of, you know? Now that you know.

26:10Jawad MirMaybe, yeah. Yeah.

26:11Carlos GrangelYeah.

26:11Jawad MirYeah.

26:12Carlos GrangelBut then Antonio signed for… Antonio Banderas, came a couple of times to the studio, and we thought it was going to be for El Dorado, but then Jeffrey convinced him to put the voice on the cat, on Puss in Boots, you know, because, Jeffrey Katzenberg thought El Zorro at the time did great, and Antonio would be wonderful with, Puss in Boots, you know, with the sword. So and then Jeffrey didn't want it to mix same voices for similar movies or that they will come more or less at the same time, you know? He wanted always new actors. So I said, "Antonio's not gonna do it. He's already doing Shrek." Oh, we've been working with pictures of Antonio for Tulio, you know? And then Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh came to the studio. Sometimes, many times at that time, like with Prince of Egypt, we will meet the actors.

27:12Carlos GrangelCharacter designers, art directors, and directors, of course. The actors will come to the studio, and, Jeffrey mostly, or Steven Spielberg, will come and knock at the doors and introduce the actors to us. And sometimes we will show what was going to happen, you know? I remember Michelle Pfeiffer on Sephora, that I was working on Sephora, for Prince of Egypt, and Michelle came, like out of the blue with Katzenberg, behind, you know? And I remember Catherine Zeta-Jones on Sinbad, and I remember, Ralph Fiennes on Prince of Egypt, and Val Kilmer, Danny Glover. I remember many actors coming to the studio, you know? So at that time, they will come, and once they had signed already, or they are interested on, Jeffrey will introduce the actors as, "Hey, guys, finally we have this guy or this lady," you know, and will be introduced to us, which was, great because that never happened in Amblimation in London, you know, for the five years I worked there, you know?

28:21Carlos GrangelObviously, LA is where you have the more, the biggest concentration of actors, you know? So, but anyway, I thought it was great, you know? And, I'm gonna answer to your question. Yes, we had a list where we had Antonio, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, J.Lo for Sh… for Sal that finally did not accept it. I saw J.Lo at the studio. I, one day, coming into the elevator, comes this sassy woman. It was J.Lo, and I knew that she was going to be talking for El Dorado, but it finally didn't go through, you know? So many times, probably they don't, it's, it's a deal that doesn't goes through, or it's, something that they don't wanna do, animation. I don't know. It's, but usually when we have the final actor or actress, it will, they will come and shake hands and, be interested on what's the process.

29:23Carlos GrangelThey've been, three or four people that they have been very interested in spending more than half an hour on seeing art direction and character design and seeing the development. Many of them, they have an artist inside, so, you know, so they wanna know more, you know.

29:42Jawad MirRight. I'll say three things. Number one, I do think, well, Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh's chemistry was great, but now that you mention Antonio Banderas and J.Lo as a possibility, that would've been even more interesting. Now, having said that, El Dorado you guys were working on in late '90s.

30:02Jawad MirIt came out in 2000. The first Shrek didn't come out until 2001.

30:08Carlos GrangelYeah.

30:08Jawad MirAnd Shrek 2 came out in 2004, and Puss in Boots was in Shrek 2. So were they already working on Shrek 2…

30:15Carlos GrangelYeah, they were…

30:15Jawad Mir... When you guys were working on…

30:17Carlos GrangelYeah, it was a, it was a cat, from an early version on Shrek 1, you know? That I saw the model.

30:24Jawad MirOh, so the cat was…

30:25Carlos GrangelI don't know if…

30:25Jawad MirOkay, so Pu... Okay.

30:27Carlos GrangelSo, Antonio was an option, too, for Sinbad, but it didn't go through, you know, too. So Antonio had a great relation with Jeffrey Katzenberg Antonio is a very genuine guy. He's one of the actors. It's not because he's Spanish, I don't care, you know? But he's a very genuine guy, apart…

30:48Jawad MirYeah

30:48Carlos Grangel... From a great actor. His problem is to be a Spaniard, you know, Spanish, you know? Because he always gets into that slot of, you know, Mexico, Italy. You know what I'm saying? He's like

31:01Jawad MirYeah

31:01Carlos Grangel... Penelope Cruz.

31:02Jawad MirHe…

31:02Carlos GrangelBut by the accent. He's like me, you know? I cannot play a, an English guy, you know? It's, it…

31:09Jawad MirI think for me... Sorry, go on.

31:13Carlos GrangelNo. We have a such a hard accent, you know? Harsh, you know, very Spaniard, you know? That we cannot play another thing, you know? So please go ahead.

31:22Jawad MirIt's true. And for me, Antonio Banderas, like, you know, we know as Mask of Zorro and Puss in Boots, but for me, the way he says in Desperado, I think it was Robert Rodriguez film.

31:36Carlos GrangelYeah. Desperado. Yeah.

31:37Jawad MirHe says, he says, "Let's play." Right?

31:41Carlos GrangelYeah.

31:41Jawad MirLike, that line is... I, and he has this accent that's not funny, but it is funny.

31:48Carlos GrangelYeah.

31:48Jawad MirBut it's serious. It's just the way he delivers these lines. And he's... And in Mask of Zorro, he was pretty s… you know, more of a serious character with just a little bit of comical re… relief jokes here and there. But yeah, he's, he's phenomenal. And I mean, Puss in Boots, I cannot imagine anyone else. You know, just like Shrek is Mike Myers and

32:12Jawad Mir... You know, i… it, there's so, it's just certain characters that you bring another dimension of life to them that nobody else possibly can.

32:21Carlos GrangelYeah. It's like Eddie Murphy with the donkey. You know what I'm saying?

32:24Jawad MirYeah. Ex… exactly.

32:25Carlos GrangelHe has another dimension. Those guys are who they are because there is something behind, inside, you know? So it's like they just nail it. Like, it doesn't gets better, you know? They're above, they're above everyone when they do one of the things, you know? This is like seeing playing Michael Jordan, you know? LeBron James, yeah, is very good, but Michael is Michael Jordan.

32:51Jawad MirMichael is Michael.

32:52Carlos GrangelYou know?

32:52Jawad MirYes.

32:52Carlos GrangelSo, you know, when you... I went to some auditions with Bobby De Niro, Eddie Murphy. Even if I didn't work on Shrek, I was going to work on Shrek, and I did not. I saw Antonio Banderas. I saw Helen Mirren. Impressive. Danny Glover on Prince of Egypt. Impressive.

33:13Carlos GrangelHelen Mirren play the…

33:16Jawad MirThe mother

33:17Carlos Grangel... Yeah, the mother, you know? Jo… Joanne. It was impressive…

33:21Jawad MirYeah

33:21Carlos Grangel... I tell you. Then I heard some others like Catherine Zeta-Jones and, Cameron Diaz. Yeah, they're good. But you hear some that they really, you really say, "Wow, these guys are there for something." You know what I'm saying? And they just have it. Some of these guys, they have a special gift, you know? And we thought was going to be Antonio, and then at the end of the day was Kevin Kline. But it's true, the chemistry between both, it worked well.

33:56Carlos GrangelI had worked before with Kenneth Branagh on a short film called The Periwig Maker that was nominated for the Academy Awards. I think it was on the year 2002. And, it was a stop-motion. And the guy is very gentle, Kenneth. And then in El Dorado was the second time. It was good. We met them both, and we had a good time. And they were very pleased to see what we were doing, what Tony, Nico, and I were working on. And, actually, we did not have the big struggle on character design on El Dorado, believe it. It went quite smooth. It's true that Jeffrey Katzenberg like it more realistic movies. It's true. More realistic style. It's true. Jeffrey always had responded more to realism to caricature. But hey, Jeffrey did Aladdin, too, at Disney, you know?

34:57Carlos GrangelAnd Beauty and the Beast. So caricature movies, you know? So, but probably on El Dorado we got the right combination. The comic strip style caricature, and then the story a bit more adult. This is what Jeffrey,.. Jeffrey somehow actually pulled the strings and directed El Dorado, you know? If you go to the credits of El Dorado, it says on directors, it says, "And Jeffrey Katzenberg," but not mentioned. You know what I'm saying? So bear in mind…

35:32Jawad MirYeah

35:32Carlos Grangel... That it was his second, third movie, you know? He was very attached to everything was happening at DreamWorks. He was very attached until his 12, 13 movie. So it's the character who he is. That's why DreamWorks, became what it was, you know?

35:52Jawad MirYeah, no, Jeffrey has this ability to... Yeah, again, it's going back to what you were saying about certain actors. They just… ... Have it in them. You know, Jeffrey may not be like, you know, a director or voice director or anything like that, even though he's, yes, you're right, on IMDb, he's given on credit. But he has this ability with people, and that's why he was able to attract such big names, which at the time was unheard of. Because, you know, anytime you would see Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin, you know, Aladdin was Robin Williams, probably one big name…

36:32Carlos GrangelYeah

36:32Jawad Mir... That's about it.

36:33Carlos GrangelYeah.

36:33Jawad MirAnd Lion King, James Earl Jones. You know, that's… ... And then Jeremy Irons. And obviously he was involved in that, too. But after that, like, celebrities now, I mean, I'm 100% sure if you were… If J.Lo was J.Lo at the time of that age in this era…

36:51Jawad Mir... She probably would have said yes to Road to El Dorado, even if it didn't have much budget.

36:56Carlos GrangelI believe it. I believe it.

36:57Jawad MirBecause it's, everybody now wants to be part of animation, right?

37:00Carlos GrangelYeah.

37:00Jawad MirLike, it's just a different world.

37:02Carlos GrangelIt's true. It's true. I always been very close to Katzenberg. It's true. He respect me a lot, and I respect him a lot. And he knew. It's not... I'm not saying it by saying, you know? And he probably is the un… a unique guy that can bring anyone to the studio to see what he's working on. If they sign or not, that's another story. It will depend from taste, lawyers, money, you know? But Jeffrey…

37:35Jawad MirYeah

37:35Carlos Grangel... Could bring anyone to the studio from the other side of the planet, right on, you know? With a call. And that's something that few people can do, you know? And he had actually a way of treating these people, like, in a way that they were calm and relaxed when they came, and, or at least they played that they f… Jeffrey makes them feel comfortable on this situation, you know? And Jeffrey Katzenberg is a sharing guy, so he brought these guys, and we were very young fellas there working on our third or fourth movie, you know, and he introduce it to us, like, you know. I remember working on Spirit, he came with Kirk Douglas, Spartacus, you know?

38:29Carlos GrangelKirk Douglas, you know? Not Michael. And Kirk was, Jeffrey was making a tour for Kirk Douglas, you know? So he could bring anyone. Brought, Bobby De Niro to the sets, Eddie Murphy on Shrek, Cameron Diaz. So anyone could... Obviously, Spielberg was there once a month, but w… that was his company too, so that's normal, okay? But Jeffrey could bring anyone to see the studio and meet the artist. That's something phenomenal.

39:02Jawad MirYeah, no, he certainly was, or, still is, but, he's completely out of the, Hollywood world for now. And he's doing all these things now in Silicon Valley. He started another company again, able to attract…

39:14Carlos GrangelYeah, with

39:15Jawad Mir... People. Right?

39:16Carlos GrangelYeah.

39:16Jawad MirWonderCo, I think it's, I think it's called WonderCo, if I'm not mistaken.

39:19Carlos GrangelYeah. He's doing all these things, I think it's a great loss for animation that Jeffrey isn't there.

39:28Jawad MirI couldn't agree more, and I think it's not just a great loss for animation, I think it's a great loss for storytelling. Because before animation, he used to head Paramount in the '80s, and… ... If you look at the films that came out in the '80s from Paramount, I mean…

39:41Carlos GrangelThey were good, yeah. I have the Ca…

39:42Jawad MirLike Top…

39:43Carlos Grangel... The Paramount Channel.

39:43Jawad MirTop Gun.

39:44Carlos GrangelI still see them, you know?

39:45Jawad MirYeah, Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop.

39:48Carlos GrangelPretty Woman, no? I think, no? That's, that's a Paramount one.

39:53Jawad MirYeah, he was involved in Pretty Woman, yes. He was…

39:55Carlos GrangelOh

39:55Jawad Mir... Involved in Pretty Woman. Dis… I think Pretty Woman was Touch… Touchstone, which was Disney.

39:59Carlos GrangelTouchstone.

40:00Jawad MirBut he was involved with Disney at the time, didn't he?

40:01Carlos GrangelActually, he went to Disney, yeah.

40:02Jawad MirYeah.

40:03Carlos GrangelYeah.

40:03Jawad MirYes.

40:04Carlos GrangelYeah.

40:04Jawad MirBut yeah, no, so let me just kinda wrap this up, Carlos. You know, when the film came out, you know, when you saw the finished film or when it came out and the way it was received, you know, your attachment to an animation film as a character designer is a little bit different than a director would be or a producer and a music composer. What was your feeling after you saw it as an audience, as well as the way it was received?

40:33Carlos GrangelOkay. I was working, I remember, on Madagascar and some Spirit artwork. When designers, we are two years into the making, and then we finish character de… design, we jump into another movie, and then the film, it still gets one year and a half or two years more to get made, you know?

40:56Carlos GrangelSo, or a year, depending when we leave. We leave when they don't need us, and if they need any character, they call us, and we are on another movie, and we made it as a courtesy because we care about the movie we were before. I th… when I saw, when I saw El Dorado, I had a good time, but I am always very critical with my work and the, and the final movie. Somehow I get very disappointed with every movie I work on the way it could... Okay, here is the deal. When you work on a movie and you have three or four great writers, and the script has two, three, four drafts, and it has great ingredients, you always think they're gonna get all the best ingredients and make that movie. And it's not. It's a, it's a consensus. It's a decision between three or four directors and Katzenberg and storyboard people.

41:59Carlos GrangelAnd sometimes it's really difficult to make something very unique, you know? Just the capacity of a few directors can do that, you know? And not all. So, one of the problems at that time is that they were getting bits and pieces that they were very funny independently, but then when they got together, the spine of the movie didn't have the A, B, and C, you know? So I thought it had some great ups and downs, you know, honestly. On El Dorado, I thought it could get better on the story too, you know? And as I, when I saw it could be go better on my characters too, but, this is what it was, you know? But, I always have that critic look, which helps me to keep improving things, you know? Or at least moving forward on a positive way, demanding way. When I saw El Dorado, I would say music was 10, number 10. You know? Visuals, they were number nine or eight and a half.

43:02Carlos GrangelBackgrounds were 10. Our characters were, was eight and a half. The gags were good. The running in Spain is great with the bull and trying to get these two idiots, you know, Tulio and Miguel. Then it gets a bit slow during the trip on the sea, you know? Then arriving to the Promised Land, it's, it's wonderful, you know? And then it gets slow, it get a bit dispersed with second con on all his madness, you know? And to me, it could get better. On story, probably I will say it was an eight. It could get, two points more to be a 10, you know? It didn't reach…

43:47Jawad MirYeah

43:47Carlos Grangel... The level of Aladdin, you know, being a comedy, you know, too. So I thought when you work on a movie like Jeffrey Katzenberg and many of the animator, we had Duncan Majoribanks, we had, Kathy Zielinski who worked on Aladdin, too. We had James Baxter. And when you have that extra power, plus the guys from DreamWorks and then Jeffrey Katzenberg, you think he did Aladdin, he's gonna make something superior, you know? And when you see that, we didn't achieve that, sorry, I'm a perfectionist. I don't, I n… I don't…

44:23Carlos Grangel... Wanna lose never. You know? I wanna keep making things better, you know? Then you wonder and if you lost your time doing two years and a half, you know? But this is my honest opinion. That's, just that…

44:37Jawad MirYeah, no, I…

44:37Carlos Grangel... It's…

44:39Jawad MirI appreciate that, and I think one of the things that has happened, and now it's even more than, you know, I think it started off in the '90s… ... And especially between DreamWorks and Disney, we kinda touched upon that. There's always this, now even now, like, you know, like, you have to release the da… like, every movie has a certain release date because, not because you've planned towards or because that's what you're wanting to do, because it has to come out in a certain year to please the shareholders and…

45:07Carlos GrangelExactly

45:07Jawad Mir... You know, the money. And that, I think, has really put down the element, the core element of every film, tradi… animation or live action, which is story, right? And, like Ridley Scott, for example, I was just wa… watching an interview of, Russell Crowe recently. Gladiator, which is, like, one of the most amazing films ever made, you know, because it's Ridley Scott, he can probably do this, but not everybody. They didn't have a finished script. They kept changing things…

45:40Jawad MirAs they were going along. Now, if it was not Ridley Scott, if it was somebody else, possibly may not have happened, right? So a story is the most core thing. You have to have that ready and complete, and…

45:52Jawad Mir... Then you go. And I think with Road to El Dorado, possibly, I'm speculating, I have no proof of this, you know, the idea of catching up, competing with Disney, and making sure it's released on time, it… because it, at DreamWorks Animation wasn't public at the time. I think that's probably went against it, I'm guessing. But who knows?

46:14Carlos GrangelYeah. I, you're totally, I truly agree with what you say because one of the problems at that time is that we had the release date. Once the film was green-light, we had the release date because that, slot was reserved for DreamWorks movies, you know? Because…

46:35Carlos Grangel... Everyone in Hollywood is trying to find out when the other ones having, are having the release dates to find out their best weekend, you know? Sometimes with three days…

46:47Jawad MirYeah

46:47Carlos Grangel... A holiday, you know. Anyway, when you, many of our films, we had the release date, when it, they were green lighted, without having the story closed, you know? So it means that…

47:03Jawad MirYeah

47:04Carlos Grangel... That everyone was competing against that deadline, you know? And sometimes, things are not coming right, you know? What you said with Ridley Scott, yes, it happened with Ridley Scott. It may happened when, with John Lasseter. It may happen with a few more, but not many. I would say four or five directors. They, Steven Soderbergh, Tarantino, but no more, you know? So…

47:38Jawad MirYeah

47:38Carlos Grangel... So that's, that's hard. That's hard, you know, to fight that deadline, you know? I just seen, some movies that they postpone it because they were so behind.

47:51Jawad MirYeah.

47:51Carlos GrangelSo they push it, but because they were so behind, they couldn't achieve anything. Not even the story, not even the animation finish, not everything, you know? So but to postpone a, an screening, a theatrical release, you know, and it's, it's, it's something impossible sometimes, you know? But yeah, so... And then the other director that can work with time is Brad Bird on The Incredibles, you know? So five, six directors can do that, not more in Hollywood. Tim can do that, Tim Burton.

48:25Jawad MirYeah, and…

48:27Carlos GrangelAnd…

48:27Jawad MirYeah, and I, it's funny you mentioned about the release date because now one of the movies that got postponed, Pixar was supposed to come out this year, Elio, the…

48:38Carlos GrangelYeah. Yes

48:39Jawad Mir... It's about, I think it was supposed to come out this year because they…

48:41Carlos GrangelI think it got postponed

48:42Jawad Mir... Started promoting it. Yeah, next year, which is weird because they actually even had the trailer that came out. Yeah, you know, normally they postpone it once they haven't released any footage. It's probably…

48:52Carlos GrangelYeah

48:52Jawad Mir... Like, just character design.

48:54Carlos GrangelYeah.

48:54Jawad MirYeah. But yeah, no, this has been great, Carlos. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. I always have a great time chatting with you, and it's just love… I enjoy listening to your stories, and you just, you know, go and start telling me all these wonderful things that I probably didn't anticipate, which is awesome. Would love continue talking to you down the road whenever you have time about other projects. It's always a pleasure.

49:20Carlos GrangelThank you for your interest, Jawad, and, I appreciate you. You're interested on all these things and your audience, too, so thank you. It's a pleasure. So see you next time. Thank you.