Harvey Guillen Discusses Why Swearing Works in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (Exclusive)

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is now playing in theaters and it stars Antonio Banderas as the fan-favorite titular character who originally made his debut in Shrek 2 back in 2004. The new animated film also features Harvey Guillén (What We Do in the Shadows) as a happy-go-lucky dog named Perrito with an extremely dark past. There's a moment in the film that features some curse words that were once directed at Perrito, which ComicBook.com's Chris Killian recently brought up in an interview with Guillén. 

"I think there was," Guillén shared when asked if he threw out any other insulting names while recording that didn't end up being used in the film. "And nothing comes to my mind right now because we went on a riff and the director was like, 'yeah, keep going,' and it was just... Some of them, looking back I was like, 'I can't believe – did we say that?' and was it just my imagination because you get to make the most vile and disgusting and hurtful names for this poor dog that would just make you feel for him so much, and so the more outrageous the insult was, the more you felt for him, so it was a fine line. 'How much do we wanna make this poor dog be abused?' And even the way he says it to himself, you know?" Guillén pointed out that Perrito shared the insulting names "with a smile on his face" and saw them as "nicknames." 

Who Is Perrito in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish?

While taking with ComicBook.com, Guillén explained what lessons audiences can learn from his character. 

"Well, I think it's a good lesson and a good moral to learn from Perrito where you see the tragic backstory that he has and his upbringing, and yet he chooses, he chooses to be optimistic, he chooses to look forward and be excited about life. I think we could all take a page from his book and say, 'yeah, stuff happens sometimes,' but you have a choice to dwell in the darkness and stay there because you become a martyr or a victim of your environment or what's happened to you, or you make a choice that it was one time, that was one day, that was one week, that was an episode or a chapter in my life that happened, it doesn't define the rest of my future. And so I think with Perrito, it's kind of a good moral story for all of us to, you know, learn form." 

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is now playing in theaters.