Strays Director Explains Process of Matching Dogs to Voice Cast

Strays is hitting theaters this weekend, and the R-Rated comedy follows a group of dogs who embark on an adventure together like a much raunchier Homeward Bound. The film’s director, Josh Greenbaum (Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar), recently spoke with ComicBook.com‘s Chris Killian about the new film and talked about the movie’s star-studded voice cast, which includes Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx, Isla Fisher, and Randall Park. During the interview, Greenbaum explained the process of matching actors to their dog counterparts. 

“Yeah, it was tricky,” Greenbaum shared. “What I kind of wound up doing, because we shot the whole film before we recorded the voices, and in fact, shot a lot of the film before I had locked in my cast, my voice cast. Which made it kind of unique and interesting to kind of figure that math out. But really, I just pointed both the dog towards the character and the actor to the character. So they both had to serve Reggie [Ferrell].”

Greenbaum continued, “So as an example, like for Reggie, you needed a sweet, optimistic, you know, bright-eyed bushy-tailed dog, who’s just constantly happy and excited about life. So will Ferrell points at that regardless of the breed, and then I looked for a breed that sort of conveys that. Particularly because I chose to make this film using real dogs. And the bulk of the film, if you look at it, it’s like 95% is real dogs. We used CG dogs when we couldn’t achieve something or when it wasn’t safe for the dogs or something.”

“So I needed their sort of ‘resting dog face,’ if you will, to convey the character where I didn’t have to do a whole lot of extra lifting. So that’s how I would kind of approach all of them, like Hunter plays this sort of gentle giant. Randall Park plays the gentle giant, Hunter. So finding this Great Dane who had kind of very sweet, soft eyes and almost looked like he lacked confidence despite being a 160lb dog. Like that’s how I tried to find the pairings. And then of course, when the magic happened, when I took the voices and the footage and married them for the first time, that was like such a rush. It was seeing the film for the first time really come together.”

What Is Strays About?

Abandoned on the mean city streets by his lowlife owner, Doug (Will Forte), a naive but lovable dog named Reggie (Will Farell) falls in with a fast-talking, foul-mouthed Boston Terrier named Bug (Jamie Foxx) and his gang of strays. Determined to seek revenge, Reggie and his new canine pals embark on an epic adventure to get him home and make Doug pay for his dirty deed.

Strays hits theaters on August 18th.