Check Out This Behind the Scenes FINDING DORY Interview! #FindingDoryEvent

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I met Ellen Degeneres and Ed O’Niell last week. I actually sat down at a table with them and talked about Finding Dory…it was a surreal experience, even more amazing than walking the red carpet at the Finding Dory World Premiere the evening before.

Photo Credit: Sara Lundberg / BudgetSavvyDiva.com

We chatted about life, mottos, the excitement of working on a Disney Pixar movie, and how three little words have affected so many people over the last 13 years…

Photo Credit: Sara Lundberg / BudgetSavvyDiva.com

We’ve all heard Ellen Degeneres joke about a Finding Nemo sequel. It’s been 13 years…and then it finally happened!! Of course our first question was about that wait, and how Ellen felt when she got the news.

Zero. I mean I take full responsibility that it’s happening, because I made it happen. I kept saying, “What’s wrong with you people? It won an Academy Award. It’s a great film, it’s iconic.” I didn’t ever imagine that it would be about Dory. I just thought that Pixar makes sequels, right? I mean, there’s a Toy Story One, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3, there’s sequels. Where’s the sequel? And then it just became a joke. I had a talk show, so I had a place to make a joke about it every time a new sequel came out.

And it really was just a joke. At a certain point, I just gave up. I just thought, there’s no way. I guess I stopped swimming. I know, it’s sad. So when Andrew [Stanton] called me, he just started with saying “Uncle, I give up.” So that was all him, and his idea. He said it’s about Dory and finding her family.

I improv’d a lot. We would go in with things that they wrote, and then they gave us free rein to do whatever. So I had a lot of lines that I don’t necessarily remember, because it’s been three years. But, the line — “How can someone save this park in one day?” That was an ad lib, and just things that you could play around with. But I didn’t have anything to do with the writing of the film.

How does Ellen feel about those three words….Just Keep Swimming?

I have to say that it’s weird that became a part of this iconic character. I didn’t know it before this happened, but that was MY motto, you know what I mean? My life has gone through a lot of different twists and turns, and I did just keep swimming. I didn’t realize that was what I was doing. But I just kept moving forward, and I just kept doing what I know how to do, which is make people happy and make people smile and make people laugh. And so it’s just so weird that that is part of this fish’s motto.

I’ve talked to so many people that go through whatever it is, if it’s an illness, or they are going through a difficult time. “Just keep swimming” is what they think about. So, I guess that’s everybody’s motto.

I love this so much – I actually tweeted out part of this quote from her during the interview. Ellen keeps it real, she’s a real person who can be affected by things in movies, finding inspiration in a simple catchphrase and turning it into life advice, just like the rest of us!

Photo Credit: Sara Lundberg / BudgetSavvyDiva.com

Ellen and Ed were a pretty funny interview duo – you can tell they had great chemisty on and off screen. They had us laughing so hard!

We asked Ed about his research on his role, and he kept it real..

Ed: I did one thing. I Googled “mimic octopus.” I did. Somebody told me to. And I didn’t know that that animal existed. It wasn’t like an octopus [that] I knew of. That they shape shift. Or they change colors. Or they — I mean, I was like what is this?

Ellen: It would be so great if we all could do that.

Ed: Somebody said they only live about three years. They don’t have a long lifespan, but it’s probably good because they’d be ruling the world.

Ellen: That’s amazing. I didn’t know they had a short lifespan.

Ed: I THINK somebody said that they don’t live that long. I don’t know.

Ellen: We should Google that, right NOW. [LAUGHS] Let’s make sure that that’s accurate. But it’s quality versus quantity, right? So it has a full life of being anything it wants it to be, and mimicking whatever it wants to mimic.

Ed: Two years!

Ellen: Wow, less. Well, this is a bummer, all of a sudden.

Ed: I was trying to give myself one more year.

Ed O’Neill had no idea what he was signing up for when he said yes to Finding Dory. There were no lines. There was no plan. He said that he thought it was going to be a cameo!

Ellen: It’s amazing though, ’cause, you know, Ed was saying he really didn’t know what his part was going to be and how big his part was going to be. He just showed up because there was no script and he thought he was doing like, a day thing.

Ed: I had done sort of a cameo in Wreck It Ralph, and so when they called me and said, “Oh, they want you to do this thing, this sequel to Nemo.” I said, “Okay, well, what is it?”

“Oh, it’s an octopus.” I said, “Oh, okay. Can I see it? Is there anything written?” No, there’s nothing. I said, “Well, why would I sign onto nothing?! I don’t even know what it is.” It’s Pixar. It’s Finding Nemo — I said, “Okay! I’m in.” And that’s all I ever knew. Then, you know, over time, I kept coming back. And I would say to Andrew [Stanton], “What’s happening? I’m back again?” And he said, “Well, it’s a progression.”

Ellen: You didn’t know it was going to be three years.

Ed: I had no idea. But, I mean, after a while, I said, “this is a bigger part than I thought it would be.”

Photo Credit: Sara Lundberg / BudgetSavvyDiva.com

One of the funny things about actors in an animated movie is that they usually don’t really work together, and Ellen and Ed shared a little bit more about that process with us.

Ellen: We never worked together, ever. I was by myself all the time. But it was so great, because I could hear his voice. And Andrew always read it. Once Ed did some [lines], I saw Ed’s character come to life, and I was like, “Oh, this is so perfect, and he’s so perfectly grumpy.”

Ed: Ha! I don’t know why they would cast me for that. The funniest thing was, I had never done anything like this. A lot of the stuff, as you know, would be like, frenetic. So you’ve gotta get this energy level so high with, like, you know, “Stop it! No! What are you doing? No! Go! Run! No! Dory! Rararara!” And you do that for like 30 seconds, and it’s like, [PANTING]. And you look in the booth and they’re going….and you hear, “Oh, Ed, that was great. Next one, maybe amp it up a little more.” Four hours, you know?

Photo Credit: Sara Lundberg / BudgetSavvyDiva.com

Ellen: Here’s the great thing, there’s no hair and makeup. You can just show up. But it’s four hours of – Dory is always left behind. She’s always catching up. She’s always like, you know like, [PANTING]. And, I’m hyperventilating. I have to stop this. Or I was screaming. And it was a lot of that, and not nearly as much as I see in the film, oddly enough. Like, “Where is all that?” Because I did it for three years.

Ed: If you’re doing a movie and you’re eating food, you don’t want to really eat too much food because it’s a hundred takes, maybe, you know. If you’re eating ribs, you end up eating a hundred ribs. It’s similar. You have to pace yourself on these things. Because, it’s the voice. It’s almost like being a singer, you know. You can’t burn out, ’cause you’re the only one there.

Ellen: Yeah, I would go home, and I would just — well, I do this because I talk for a living — and I would go home and I just wouldn’t talk. Because I was just so like [body slumps, face frowns with exhaustion] and so when people would ask me to speak whale I’m like, “No. [LAUGHS] You go and watch the movie, and watch me speak whale. Can’t do it.”

One of the bloggers on the trip asked Ellen:

“What are you hoping that your characters bring to kids, to parents, and to people?”

“Never give up” and “be optimistic” and “there’s always another way.” When someone says that there isn’t another way, there is. You don’t get stuck. And no matter what your situation is, it can get better. Everybody starts from a different places, and some people start with a lot more odds stacked against them. But there’s a way out. Here’s a way to use whatever you do best to help you. Even if you have a disability.

Use your strengths, whatever that is.

Mine was making people laugh. I had a lot of stuff that was hard for me in my life, and I knew that I could make people laugh, and that was my strength.

Finding Dory hits theaters on June 17, get your tickets now!

About Finding Dory

Disney•Pixar’s “Finding Dory” reunites everyone’s favorite forgetful blue tang, Dory, with her friends Nemo and Marlin on a search for answers about her past. What can she remember? Who are her parents? And where did she learn to speak Whale? Directed by Andrew Stanton (“Finding Nemo,” “WALL•E”) and produced by Lindsey Collins (co-producer “WALL•E”), the film features the voices of Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Ed O’Neill, Kaitlin Olson, Ty Burrell, Eugene Levy and Diane Keaton.

You can catch the FINDING DORY movie trailer here – it will make you laugh!