How ‘Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile’ Directors Made a Singing Croc Feel Like the Soul of Shawn Mendes

Lyle the crocodile is not meant to be judged by his exterior, just like Bernard Waber’s childrens book from which he originated. If both were judged by their covers, readers and viewers would surely miss out.

“We made the movie because we loved the book,” said director Josh Gordon in an interview with TheWrap. “And the story behind the book, which to us was really about embracing joy and the power of love to save people and unlock potential.”

“Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile” tells (and sings) the story of a stage-shy crocodile who has the voice of an angel (Shawn Mendes). Lyle gets discovered by Hector P. Valenti (Javier Bardem) in a last-ditch effort trip to Eddie’s Exotic Animals, where he hopes to find his hail mary magical animal act to make money and repay his growing debt. Gordon directed alongside longtime moviemaking partner Will Speck.

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“I think [Hector], is potentially at the end of the road when we first see the beginning of the movie, and I think he discovers and comes upon something that is completely pure and untouched and innocent,” Speck said. “And partially out of selfishness but a lot out of the joy and excitement of what it feels like to be in the presence of such genius, he’s looking for a new path or a new start or an answer.”

Lyle becomes the star of the story in his own way, with the help of character and live actor Ben Palacios, who wore a specifically crocodile-designed helmet with a snout, sensor and a girth suit to take up the space that a 900-pound crocodile normally would, as well as the vocals of talented musical artist Shawn Mendes.

“The challenge of making a movie with a CGI character at the center of it is always for us, especially, to try to make it feel as real and emotionally present as possible, and so on set, we had a stand in that would play a Lyle for the other actors so that they had something real to react to,” Gordon said. “Especially the children and also our cinematographer, camera operators, and everybody bringing these musical numbers to life could actually be interacting with a real living presence.”

Mendes’ casting in the role added a whole new layer to the creature, who has a lot to say through song, but never speech. Animators even mimicked Mendes’ expressions down to the looks in his eyes to further attach him to Lyle.

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“We were able to craft his performance and his singing, and we taped him so that the animators down in Australia at Method [Studios, who merged with Iloura], which is one of the top shops in the world, could really make Lyle feel like the soul of Shawn Mendes,” Gordon said. “So that was really important to us. We both had a physical presence on the set, but then were able to really craft the final performance of Lyle around Shawn’s performance.”

As for Lyle’s more cuddly counterparts like Clifford the Big Red Dog or Paddington Bear, Speck encourages viewers not to count the crocodile out of the lovable crowd of creatures so quickly.

“He’s got a really sweet soul. He’s an artist, a singer. He’s sort of misunderstood. All of those things bring with them an inherent charm that takes away his threat,” Speck said. “Even though he’s a crocodile, you shouldn’t always judge a book by its cover.”

They even devised a clever scheme to get Lyle out into the world without scaring children and adults alike. This was accomplished by dressing the CGI croc up as a Florida gator.

“[With] ‘Paddington,’ it’s accepted — not wrong or right, just different — in that world that there is a bear that talks. He goes to coffee vendors, etc.,” Speck said. “Similar to ‘Ted’ for example, and I think what we wanted was the idea that if [Lyle] was a crocodile and he was walking the streets, that people would be scared of him and freaked out, as you would if you saw that happen, that our world was the real world and super grounded and realistic. Our choice was not better, it was just different that he had to, in some ways, disguise himself to be out in the world.”

Constance Wu, who has a musical theater background, performs her own number, written by the team — specifically Emily Gardner Xu Hall, and Mark Sonnenblick — under Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, with Lyle.

“Her character was an important one to us because she, like a lot of parents, represents somebody who is struggling to evolve with her child’s growth,” Gordon said. “She was an established successful cookbook author, and [she] put that aside briefly to work with her with her kid more. The number’s called ‘Rip Up the Recipe’ and really, it’s about Lyle telling her to relax and try to not to control everything so much — not trying to have everything, be regimented.”

Mr. Primm, the family breadwinner, moves his family to New York City to teach math at a new school. His glory days of wrestling are some of his best memories, and while he tries to encourage the same love he had for the sport in his son Josh (Winslow Fegley), all he has to remember it by is a framed jersey, until Lyle comes along.

“We were looking for ways that each family member could be touched by Lyle, and, for Mr. Primm he’s in a new city, he’s suddenly dealing with kids that are not out in the middle of nowhere and have a sophisticated palate to them, and he’s not able to really control him in his classroom,” Speck said. “So we were like, ‘Well, what’s something from his past that could help him move forward into his adult life, into older years?’ and I think both Josh and I have like glory days of our high school sports that we refer back to — Josh was All-League in his running club, and I was l on the swim team for like, five minutes — and I think it’s funny how, when you reach middle age you hang on to those things as like a moment in time.”

After winning over Josh and Mrs. Primm, the scaled singer takes a different approach with Josh’s dad.

“Every character that Lyle interacts with in the movie has their own musical number, except for Mr. Primm, who has this kind of almost percussive wrestling number,” Gordon said. “It was almost like ‘stomp.’ Instead of just having another number, [we decided] to go with something more comedic and something that really could unlock Mr. Primm’s character. There is a sort of rhythm to it, It’s just not singing.

The one character in the story who Lyle cannot soften is Alistair Grumps (Brett Gelman), or Mr. Grumps for short.

“Grumps, played by Brett Gelman, was of course one of our favorite characters because he’s such a sort of typical New York character, just that person that has never left his apartment, probably never will leave his apartment for his whole life, views everybody as attacking, you know, his city, his street and so of course, he doesn’t like these interlopers upstairs,” Gordon said.

Gordon and Speck even revealed a full backstory that they constructed for Grumps and Valenti, centering around their childhood growing up as neighbors (Grumps lives below Valenti’s brownstone) and also their past — with Grumps being Hector’s former partner before Lyle. Grumps was then burned by Hector after putting on a musical with him, and this backstory informs the scenes between the two.

“Grumps is really the bad guy of the movie, but Javier in a lot of way also is both good and bad,” Gordon added. “So you kind of get this interesting dichotomy with the two of them.”

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“Javier’s character is a tricky one because he’s sometimes unlikable, but ultimately, redeemed and I think we wanted to give a little bit of that duality in that character and again sometimes you wrap your own ideas and dreams off in things that really you can’t ultimately control,” Speck said.

Speck makes that last reference after explaining Mr. Primm’s desire to live vicariously through Josh in terms of encouraging his son to join the wrestling team.

“What we were trying to subtly suggest for Lyle is you can always at any point return to what brought you joy or strength or power,” he said. “[Lyle] unlocking the wrestling for Mr. Primm is a way of kind of reminding him that you can always take back what was once yours, and I think what Mr. Primm is subtly suggesting in Josh signing up for wrestling is what we also do, which is to kind of live through our children, as opposed to kind of looking at our own backyard and thinking about things and changes that we can make.”

Another theme of giving up control lies in the extension of Mr. Grumps — his beloved cat Loretta — who he keeps a close eye on throughout the film, even though she sneaks out with Lyle and Josh behind his back most nights. And while Lorette was played by a real cat on set, the filmmakers made a big change in post-production to the character.

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“She’s sort of the mean girl of the book, and ultimately comes over to our hero’s side. So we knew there was going to be a big arc there. When we first started shooting the movie, she was conceived much more as a practical character. So we actually had a cat on set every day,” Gordon said. “When you put the camera on her face, she would always make us laugh, but as we got into the post process, we realized that it wasn’t going to be sophisticated enough to really arc her and tell that whole story. So we kind of went back to Method Iloura our partners down in in Australia, and really changed a lot of her performance in post. She became actually one of our biggest CG characters in the movie.”

Note: Spoilers are discussed in the rest of this piece.

Back to Bardem’s role, Hector ultimately lets Lyle go be a freer version of himself with the Primms towards the end of the film, after many tense moments that culminate in Josh encouraging Lyle to show his talent to a live audience.

“Ultimately he has to find that [answer] in himself. I think his realization and resignation is tied up in that moment that Lyle doesn’t step into their final act together, and I think it causes Javier to kind of face some tough things in his character’s journey,” Speck said. “But that ultimately, are very releasing and freeing for their dynamic and relationship and we imagine, as you see in the very last scene that movie, that if and when they continue on together as friends, they’re going to understand where their friendship starts, and where their professional relationship ends.”

Gordon compared Hector and Lyle’s relationship to that of Mozart and Salieri in that Hector recognizes Lyle’s great talent, even if he himself cannot be a part of it.

“There’s something to us that’s very painful about a character being present at the birth of great genius, but not having it themselves, and the pain that artists will feel,” he said. “Knowing that you’re not ‘it,’ but being able to recognize it when you see it. So that was also something that kind of informed a little bit of that relationship.”

Apart from the songs by Pasek and Paul, who also worked to bring “The Greatest Showman” to life with an original soundtrack, the film’s sonic moments range from more modern songs like Cardi B, Bad Bunny and J Balvin’s collab “I Like It” to classics like Charles Wright and the 103rd Street Rhythm Band’s “Express Yourself.”

“We wanted the film to be set against the backdrop of all this incredible original music by Pasek and Paul, but we also wanted to show that the movie was in our time, in the real world,” Speck said. “As we were looking for additional source cues, we pulled from what we consider the Great American Songbook of pop music — Stevie Wonder, Elton John, James Taylor — these sort of iconic songs that your parents grew up on, you might have heard, and maybe a new generation gets to discover them, but it’s not unlikely that in your modern Starbucks, you would hear a Stevie Wonder song.”

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The full team who worked under Pasek and Paul include Joriah Kwamé, EmilyGardner Xu Hall, Mark Sonnenblick, and Arianna Asfar.

“Hopefully these songs that [they’ve] created, are classics as well, because we believe in Pasek and Paul’s ability to write in that pop vernacular that’s timeless and emotional,” said Speck. “And also Shawn is the voice of a generation that we think is gonna continue to enrich and enliven pop music.”

Mendes contributed his own original song “Heartbeat” to the closing credit sequence.

“One of the reasons we made this movie was really, honestly to put joy out into the world. It’s a very cynical time, and it’s a difficult time especially for children, but for everybody,” Gordon said. “I think the power of movies is that you can be transported and go to a place where you leave the theater feeling like you’re charged about life again, by the possibility of human kindness and joy.”

“It’s a very sophisticated story, and the music of Pasek and Paul adds a whole level to it. “We really tried to make it in a way that all audiences would react to it,” he added. “In a way that, movies like ‘E.T.’ and ‘Iron Giant,’ even ‘The Incredibles’ sort of related to a lot of different audiences at once. So it probably codes as a children’s story, but really, it’s for everybody.”

“Lyle, Lyle Crocodile” is now playing in theaters.