Actress Abigail Breslin, who turns 15 in April, has played a variety of roles from Little Miss Sunshine to Kit Kittredge to Little Rock, a Zombie fighter in Zombieland but in the new animated Western comic adventure Rango, she’s a mouse with a gun.
Little mouse Priscilla lives in the town of Dirt, packs a pistol and hopes that new sheriff in town, a chameleon named Rango (voiced by Johnny Depp) can save the citizens from a water shortage and some tough hombres.
Abigail Breslin
Kidzworld is hanging with Abigail in Beverly Hills and learning how she made the difficult transition from child to teen actress, how much fun she had working on Rango, how she and her BFFs handle texting and what a guy must never do it he wants to get close to her!
Picture Abby with her dark hair up in a ponytail and wearing a cute black jacket over a white polka dot dress with black belt and accessorized with some really tall suede pumps.Top that all off with smoky eyes and some pale lip gloss.
Kidzworld: I thought Little Priscilla was a mole but she’s a mouse?
- Abigail Breslin: There’s a very technical term for the type of animal she is. But, for our purposes, mouse is perfectly acceptable [she laughs]. I saw a picture of her and she’s a glamour girl. She’s kind of gorgeous and adorable. I thought that all the characters were pretty cute, but in a strange way odd. Cute, but not cuddly. It's like you don't want to hold them.
Kidzworld: You’ve done a couple of voices before (Air Buddies, Quantum Quest) but for Rango, wasn’t the whole cast actually there acting out the movie together on a set to give the animators some kind of reference? Was that more fun for you?
- Abigail: Yeah. We filmed it sort of like a play. We were all together and got to bounce off of each other which was great. It’s a lot different from just being in a studio and recording [your voice] into a microphone.
Kidzworld: So you were standing opposite Johnny Depp when you recorded your scenes with him? Like when Priscilla said “That’s a funny lookin’ shirt”?
- Abigail: [laughs] Yeah, exactly. Usually, with animated movies, they just choose one [voice] take for the other actor to [respond] to so you sort of have to adapt to it. With this, it’s like a regular live action movie. You change according to what the other actor is doing and try different things.
Kidzworld: Did you wear a hat or a partial costume? In trailers for the film we see Johnny dressed up cowboy style.
- Abigail: I wore a hat and a black wig and had a [fake] gun. I hope there are no pictures of that! I got a really bad rash on my neck from the wig. So that was a little unfortunate.
Kidzworld: Are you a fan of Western movies like True Grit?
- Abigail: I’d never really seen too many Westerns before but, since this movie, I would love to see more. My dad loves them. He told me that to be a smart person I have to watch them.
Kidzworld: What is your favorite animated movie? Maybe from back when you were a little kid.
- Abigail: Well I love, obviously, The Little Mermaid/./ But, from the past year, I love Toy Story 3 and Despicable Me. I really want to see Tangled and Gnomeo and Juliet.
Kidzworld: This film isn’t in 3-D for a change. I don’t think it needs it.
- Abigail: Yeah, I think it actually looks lifelike anyway. It looked really cool, and 3-D can make you dizzy.
Kidzworld: What has been the most fun thing about being a teen actress rather than a little kid actress?
- Abigail: Just the difference in the roles I get I guess but I’m just playing my age in every movie so … well, not all the time. I’m usually not a mouse in [a Western].
Kidzworld: So, we won’t see you as a 14-year-old playing a 20-year-old.
- Abigail: No. I don’t think I would look like a 20-year-old.
Kidzworld: When you and your friends are out together, are you too busy texting each other or other people to actually talk to each other?
- Abigail: Well, we text but we do talk to each other. If we have to tell each other something [secret] we use code. It’s a code thing sort of like IM.
Kidzworld: What is the biggest thing you think you’ve learned about acting since way back when you made Little Miss Sunshine?
- Abigail:I think how cool it is to step into someone else’s shoes and be someone else. It’s really cool to feel like a different person then go home and be yourself. I think you get that more when you are older. You play more characters that are way different than yourself. If you are an 8-year-old, playing an 8-year-old, you are just that.
Kidzworld: Let’s say a guy wants a date or just wants to hang out with you as a friend, what must he just never do or you won’t want to see him again?
- Abigail: He can’t be mean, like jerky. That’s not good.It’s okay it he texts but I don’t like the whole pretending to listen to what you’re saying. Saying, ‘Just a second, I’ve got to do something’, that’s okay but going ‘uh huh’ and not listening to you, no.
Kidzworld: Good point. What is some advice about acting that you got and who gave it to you?
- Abigail: Well, my brother [Spencer] told me, when I was younger doing my first movie, ‘Never call anyone on the set by their first name. Say ‘Mr. then their last name or Miss, then their last name’. He was trying to be my parent at that time when he was nine years old.
Kidzworld: Who do you play in the movie New Years Eve and do you have any scenes with Zac Efron?
- Abigail: I can’t say yet who I have scenes with or who I play [we heard she plays a girl named Hailey] but I’m very excited to start filming that. I start in March. I’ve met Zac once. He was so sweet and I loved the whole High School Musical thing.
Kidzworld: Do you have Bieber Fever? He’s here in the hotel.
- Abigail: I think Justin Bieber is cool and I like some of his songs but I don’t have the fever par-se but he’s cool.
Kidzworld: So what will we see next from you?
- Abigail: I have a movie coming out called Janie Jones [A young girl who has been abandoned by her former-groupie mother informs a fading rock star that she is his daughter] and I sing in that and I play guitar. I just started learning guitar so that’s coming out soon.
By: Lynn Barker
