The Secret Life of Pets 2 brought all your favorite pets back to the big screen, including Max, Duke, Gidget, Daisy, Chloe, and of course Snowball. Fans were delighted to see their favorites once more, and the hit film is now available on home video to watch as many times as you want. Recently ComicBook.com had the chance to speak to the man who brings Duke to life in the booth Eric Stonestreet, and we talked to him about everything from his favorite moment to who he would love to see Duke get more time with in the future. First off though we started with how Duke has changed since the first film, going from the chaos creator to the glue that holds this little family together.
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“Going into the first one, you want to do a good job, and it was my first entry into an animated project on that scale,” Stonestreet said. “So it kind of fit because in the first movie, Duke didn’t have a lot of confidence in where he was, and I was figuring out what Duke sounded like and how he was. With this one, you know, he’s more comfortable in his world, in his own world and like you said he’s really kind of a little bit of some glue for Max and that’s how I felt as well coming into the second one, having the first one been such a big success that I felt more confident and more at home and more in place. Overall, just that I love how relaxed and more comfortable Duke was in his shoes, given that he knew he had a home and wasn’t on the verge of getting booted.”
There were plenty of wonderful Duke moments in the film, but one of our favorites was easily Duke meeting the cow on Rooster’s farm, though Duke didn’t really end up getting the best of that duel. That conversation is actually a perfect example of what Stonestreet loves about Duke, as at the beginning Duke is played a bit for a fool but is also in on the joke as the conversation goes on.
“As far as my favorite part Duke moment in the movie is just a couple of the lines where you kind of see that you can’t judge Duke,” Stonestreet said. “He’s kind of like a dullard or a little bit of a simpleton, but he has these lines that kind of come out of nowhere that really make him smarter than you’d think he is. Like when Max was talking about his phone and I say something along the lines of it’s a very specific problem to you, but yeah, I get it. I can’t remember exactly the line, but just those little moments where you see like oh Duke’s paying attention. He gets it more than you may think he does.”
Duke gets to interact with Harrison Ford’s Rooster a bit during this adventure, but if a sequel happens he would love to get even more time with the character and the person bringing him to life.
“Well, I mean I wish I would have got more time with Rooster for sure, because we established so quickly that Duke thinks Rooster is the coolest dog he’s ever seen in his life,” Stonestreet said. “And there was stuff that we recorded that didn’t make it into the movie, but I know that were other reasons above my pay grade that they had to cut, that I would love for Duke and Rooster to spend some more time together. I would love to be in more scenes with Harrison Ford for sure.”
As for why this series resonates with fans so much, for Stonestreet, it comes down to the main thing that many pet owners have in common, and that’s a fascination with the lives and wellbeing of their pets.
“I don’t know how many billion dollars the pet industry is, but I’m an animal lover,” Stonestreet said. “I’m a dog lover. I’m just like everybody else. I mean, it’s so fun to just imagine our animals and what they do, and I think we all do that inherently anyway. Ever since I’ve been a kid, I’ve always given my animal’s voices in my own head and you know what they sound like and what they’re up to when we leave and things like that. So this movie just delivered what I think a lot of people, you know, have been asking for for a long time. We love our animals. We spend gobs of money on them and shower them with gifts and everything else. So it makes sense that the movie was a big hit and it makes sense why people were so excited to see the first one and the second one.”
You can relive your favorite moments from the movie by checking out The Secret Life of Pets 2 on home video now, and the movie is available on digital platforms, DVD, and Blu-ray.
