The latest film from Disney-Pixar asks the eternal question: “What if you could talk to animals and understand what they say back to you?”
But Hoppers is no ordinary talking-animal animated movie. In this story, scientists have discovered how to “hop” human consciousness into lifelike robotic animals, allowing people to communicate with animals as animals. The film centers on 19-year-old Mabel (raised in Chicago and former Disney kid Piper Curda), an animal lover who seizes an opportunity to use the hopping technology to impersonate a beaver, uncovering mysteries within the animal world that are beyond anything she could have imagined and hopefully save the natural environmental in her community from a disreputable mayor (Jon Hamm).
The film features voice work from such dignitaries as Meryl Streep, Dave Franco, Kathy Najimy, Bobby Moynihan, Melissa Villaseñor, Ego Nwodim, Vanessa Bayer, Sam Richardson, Aparna Nancherla, and the recently departed Isiah Whitlock Jr. Directed by Daniel Chong (making his feature debut), Hoppers might seem like it’s more geared toward younger audiences, but like so many Pixar productions, there are deeper, even darker corners about childhood loss and feelings of isolation that adults will identify with and respond to more than kids—and Curda’s portrayal of Mabel is a big part of the movie’s successful execution.
Curda had her breakthrough with the Disney Channel in series like A.N.T. Farm and I Didn’t Do It, as well as the comedy TV film Teen Beach 2, before transitioning into more mainstream acting, including the horror film The Wretched and the Todd Haynes drama May December. She’s next set to star in the indie comedic-thriller The Dregs. I got a chance to sit down with her recently and discovered not only was Chicago the first stop on the Hoppers press tour, but that I was her first interview ever for the film. The stakes were high and the pressure was on, to say the least.
The film is now in theaters. Please enjoy my conversation with Curda.
Coming from a family in which all of your siblings are actors, is that a build-in support system or non-stop rivalry?
It’s definitely the former. We do get that question all the time, especially now. My youngest sister is seven years younger than me, so it’s a decent gap, but we’re now at the ages where I’ve stopped aging, and she looks older, so we are now going out for the same parts. And people wonder if that’s hard or weird, and honestly it’s not at all. There have actually been instances where we go out for the same part, and she gets it and I don’t. And I’m like “If they wanted her, they didn’t really want me, because we’re so different in type.” We look similar and can act the same, but there’s a different element and energy to our performances. We’re both really good at making our peace with that. That’s how it’s always been. My dad was in the military, so we traveled all the time, and all of us being in the business, we have each other and sometimes that’s all we need, so it has always been a support system.
Thank goodness. This film might one of the most emotionally complex Pixar films I’ve ever seen, because Mabel is so angsty, fiery. What would you say she’s going through in this? What are her issues, and what is fueling her?
Yeah, the thing I love about her and what makes me feel really like I really understand her on a deeper level is that all of it is coming from a place of caring. A lot of us can relate to that because all around us, we’re seeing a lot of suffering and we want to do something about it, but it feels like there’s nothing we can do. And that’s what fuels her. That and sometimes rage . She wants to do something about this situation, and everyone is telling her that she can’t. That’s something I one-hundred-percent relate to and other people do . It’s what makes her journey so interesting to watch. Even though she cares and wants to do the right thing, there are multiple instances where maybe she’s going about it the wrong way or an odd way or maybe not the most efficient way. Her relationship with King George is what shows her that there are other ways to care. I think she has so much inside of her, and she represents that emotional complication that so many people go through where they have so many feelings and they don’t know what to do with them or where to put them, and sometimes it just comes out as a yell. I like that she brings that energy to the table; she’s not a Disney princess, which is great.
I love that one of the lessons she learns is that just because you’re breaking the rules for the right reasons doesn’t mean you’re not breaking the rules.
Exactly.
Let’s talk about the road to getting this part. How many years ago did you first hear about it and try out?
It’s February now, so almost exactly two years ago—January 2024. I probably started recording for it around two years ago, pretty quickly after I found out. I remember thinking 2026 seemed like so far away, but now it’s here. But they’ve been working on it for four years, maybe more, so I can’t imagine how the rest of the team feels.
I’ve been to Pixar a few times and talked to a lot of the filmmakers there. I love how much the story process goes through so many iterations. By the time it got to you, was it done, or did you have to go back and re-record things?
As far as story development, it was pretty much done. A lot of the elements of the plot or character didn’t really change once I got on board. But it was definitely at varying stages of animation, so they would always show me what they had done in a scene before I would record, and sometimes that was storyboard drawings, other times it was an almost completed finished scene, ready for the screen. And the art was something they were adjusting a lot while I was recording. But the script seemed set in stone, even though I didn’t know what that stone looked like. I never read a script for this movie, because they keep it so under wraps so it can’t get out.
And you don’t record with other people, so you don’t even know the other half of the conversation you’re having.
Right, literally until they screened the movie for me, I did not know how it ended!
This is your first voice work for animation. What would you say are the main differences between acting in front of the camera and voice acting?
It’s really interesting. I’ve been doing this for 20 years now, so it’s really rare that an experience feels like I’m learning something new, which I loved doing. And this did feel new. I’d done one or two small voiceover projects prior to this, so I wasn’t super-familiar with this world, but it’s interesting because you have to rely so much more on your imagination, which is taking it back to playing house as a kid. It’s like you’re getting back to your roots, because there’s no hair or makeup or wardrobe; there’s no sets or other people. You can’t draw your energy from anywhere else really. It all has to come from your or Daniel Chong; I owe so much of my energy to him because he has so much energy in the booth, and that makes it so much easier to bounce off of him when he’s being like that. It was sort of like I’d been lifting really light and suddenly, they were like “Lift heavy now.” And I would always want to know if I was doing it right.
Some people don’t, by the way. I’ve heard of big-name actors who can’t sell an animated voice.
Yeah, I’ve heard that, and after the first few times, I was like “Are they going to fire me? Am I doing this right or well?” And I guess I did. It was really fun to use those muscles that I never really had before.
Everyone I know who has done animated work says they get really physical in the booth, even break a sweat. Is that a way to make it feel more like traditional acting?
Yeah, I think so. When you’re doing things like the little noises, like when you’re running, for those things, you’re almost doing yourself a disservice by not getting physical. You can sometimes tell when someone is acting like they’re climbing, but they’re really just sitting in a chair. So if you’re really getting your body into it, it helps you feel like it’s a real sound. Also, you almost feel more freedom in the booth. I mean, I would contort my face to get the right sounds I wanted, but if I’m on camera, I’m not going to do that, I’d look insane. But because there’s no camera on you, you just do whatever you want to get the performance.
I know that sometimes they do film you in the booth and try to capture some of your facial work in the character. Now that you’ve seen the finished film, did you notice any of that?
Yeah, I didn’t know that they did that until about the third or fourth session. I actually asked “Why do you have a camera there?” And they told me that they record your face so that when you say certain lines, they can see how your face moves, and I was fascinated by that. The character already kind of looks like me, and so she’s also going to have my face movements? Is that going to add to the uncanny valley of it all? But no, it’s really cool and makes so much sense. That’s why it’s an animated work, but it still feels real. It’s a real person’s expressions and intonations.
I heard a story that, initially, you were told you didn’t get this role. Tell me about that emotional roller coaster.
Yep. It was crazy. It was about a two-week period.
Just long enough to go through all the cycles of grief.
Exactly! After the final audition, they said we’d know in the next two weeks. They took the whole two weeks, and at the very end, my agent said, “It’s just not going your way.” I’ve lost out on big roles before, but I was devastated. And just before that, there were a couple other big projects that I’d been told no on, and there were a lot of signs that made me ask “Should I quit? Has my career run its course? Should I move on to other avenues?” And then like you said, I was finally making my peace with it and trying to understand, and then my agent called again and said, “Are you sitting down?” “What are you about to say to me?” “Pixar came back.” He’s a funny guy, but he’s not a jokester, and for the longest time, it didn’t feel real, even when I was in the booth recording. It wasn’t until the trailer came out that I finally felt “Okay, this is a real movie, and I’m in it.” It really did a number on my brain.
Are there elements of Mabel you wish you had more of, and are there things you wish she had less of?
Honestly, they’re probably the same answer, which is that I wish I had more of her confrontational energy. I’m game for any confrontation in my head, but when I get there, I’m like “Thank you. I’ll lay down if you want to step on me” kind of thing. She’s definitely a take-not-shit person. She’ll do whatever she has to do to accomplish what she wants to accomplish, and I love that about her. Especially at her age, I was 10 time worse than now, so she’s very inspiring to me that you can be that way. On the flip side, that definitely gets in her way in the movie. It’s a great quality that she has, but she needs to reign it in sometimes.
I know that Pixar doesn’t typically put two actors together during the recording process, but have you met any of the people you co-star with in this film?
I’ve met Bobby. We’ve already done some press together. He’s amazing. I have seen hide nor hair of Jon Hamm, so I’ve been telling everyone he’s fake and not real. Everyone is getting so worked up over the first AI actor, and I’m like “It’s already happened; it’s Jon Hamm.” I’m fully going to believe he’s not a real person until proven otherwise.
Are you going to be able to handle it when they prove otherwise?
I’m going to ask him “Can I touch your face real quick, just to see if my hand goes through it?” And I think Dave Franco is going to be in LA for some of the press too. It’s crazy that I’m in a movie with all of these phenomenal actors, and I have met one of them.
Tell me real quick about your next film, The Dregs.
That’s a movie I did last year in Canada. I assume they’re shooting to release this year, but it’s an indie so that could change. It was one of those movie where I’d never meet anybody in the cast before, so it was a little bit nervy going into it, but everyone was awesome, and it felt like summer camp, so fun. It’s about a group of friends who are basically all the people you never want to go on vacation with, and they go to Italy and find this old bottle of grappa and it has a mystical power that when you drink it, it makes people disappear, and they have to grapple with that. Chaos ensues. It’s not all the way horror, but it’s a weird comedy, kind of like Bodies Bodies Bodies vibe. It will probably end up being R rated. Such a stacked young cast. We had so much fun making it, and I hope that translates.
Best of luck with this. It was so great meeting you.
Thank you for being my first interview!
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