‘Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken’ Team on Challenges of Voice Acting and Portraying Mermaids as “Mean Girls of the Ocean”

The stars of Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, including Lana Condor, Jane Fonda, Annie Murphy, Liza Koshy and Jaboukie Young-White, gathered at the Los Angeles premiere of their DreamWorks film on Wednesday — which, because of the nature of voice work, was the first time some of the actors had actually met.

Noting that she was new to voice acting and “kind of just getting my feet under me with this,” Fonda told The Hollywood Reporter, “What’s strange is you don’t meet the other actors. … I haven’t met any of them. You’re just all by yourself and it’s a challenge, but it’s fun. I’m looking forward tonight to actually meeting these other people.”

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Ruby Gillman follows an awkward high school student (voiced by Condor) who discovers she’s a direct descendant of the warrior kraken queens and destined to inherit the throne from her commanding grandmother (Fonda). The kraken are sworn to protect the oceans of the world against vain, power-hungry mermaids.

“I wanted to do something with DreamWorks, and I’ve never had a chance before. This came along, and I loved the idea of playing the matriarch kraken, the leader of the good forces under the deep seas,” Fonda explained of joining the project. “I love the deep seas. In fact, I was just at the U.N. helping to pass the Global Oceans Treaty. So I was kind of like a kraken matriarch.”

Condor said it was a dream of hers to work with DreamWorks, and she was drawn to “the multi-generational aspect of our film — the grandmother, the mother, the daughter relationship, I was so excited about that” and admitted that the first time she saw it on the big screen, “I started crying at the DreamWorks opening.”

Of taking on voice acting versus traditional live-action performing, Condor said, “It’s like night and day; for me, I don’t even think it’s the same thing. I think in live-action it’s like a give and take, 50-50 between your co-stars; I think in voice acting you have nothing to work off of besides a dark booth so you kind of have to have more confidence in yourself because you’re like, ‘It’s up to me!'”

Koshy, who co-stars in the film, added, “When it comes to acting on screen, you are way more subdued, you’re way more thinking about your blinks, you’re way more reeled in with more of a natural response and more of a natural reaction. [With] voice acting, you get to sweat, you get to lose your mind, you get to have fun, you get to do guttural grunts and whatnot. The chaos you are in the booth is unparalleled.”

The film’s focus on mermaids, this time as the villains of the story, comes just a few weeks after the release of Disney’s live-action The Little Mermaid put sea people in the spotlight.

“I think the timing’s interesting because I think it gives a different perspective; it flips something on its head where we’re used to seeing mermaids in a different light and as beautiful as they are — Halle Bailey, she did amazing — mermaids are always so praised,” said Koshy. “I think to flip it on its head and see krakens, you get to see the backstory of a kraken and you get to see the backstory of something that was villainized for so long and was so scary and such a monster and to be feared rather than to be friends with.”

Executive producer Mike Mitchell took an even harder stance in this summer’s mermaid battle, joking, “Everyone loves a mermaid, why? Let’s just take a pause and let’s think about that for a second. I think they’re the mean girls of the ocean and I think they’re also crushing our coral and they’re making hair products out of the coral and they’re destroying the environment.

“I’m not fucking around. This is dangerous times, we really need to look before we leap,” he continued. “Just because they look beautiful, all the more reason to be cautious! You never know what’s beneath the surface.”

Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken hits theaters Friday.

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