In the new animated film Back to the Outback, a band of "scary" animals escape from a zoo in Syndey and trek back to their natural habitat, the Outback. Along the way, this close knit-group of friends end up with an unwilling stowaway -- Pretty Boy (Tim Minchin), a vain but adorable koala who has become a global icon. Dragged along on their adventure, Pretty Boy confronts the darker elements of being a "dangerous" animal. Pretty Boy ends up being both the comic relief of the film and one of its emotional lynchpins, alongside Isla Fisher's Maddie.
Deeply involved in the production, Minchin contributed two songs for Back to the Outback's soundtrack -- "Beautiful Ugly" and "Maddie's Lullaby," performed by Evie Irie and Indigenous Australian singer-songwriter Thelma Plum. As Pretty Boy, he throws himself into the animated adventure's sillier and dramatic scenes alike. During an exclusive interview with CBR, Tim Minchin broke down the most surprising elements of the prima-donna koala Pretty Boy and discussed how much he loved the film's subversion of Australian clichés.
For this film, you got to go to work every day and be the world's worst koala for a little bit, which is a unique position to have.
Tim Minchin: It's such a funny idea because, obviously, there's this cliché of rock stars being spoiled and narcissistic. It's a cliché because it's true. It's obviously lovely to watch a character have to see the truth behind their surface. But it's also really funny because I think the idea came... I haven't talked to [Co-Director Harry Caplan] about this, but the ideas that actual koalas, the marsupials we have in Australia, they look super cuddly -- but they're a-holes. If one's really trained and well-fed, they'll let a tourist cuddle them. But if they're not, they're grumpy, and they'll come at you. They've got these nasty claws. So this idea that we all think koalas are cute, but actually, they're stone-cold and quite angry. I thought it was a pretty good premise for a kid's film.
What I didn't really like about Pretty Boy is he gets this little three-dimensional stubbornness to him. It applies to him when he's being that awful rock star character -- but it also applies when he becomes nicer. That stubbornness doesn't change. It doesn't go away. It just becomes a positive attribute.
That's such a brilliant observation, because two interviews ago, I said almost exactly that word for word. I hadn't really thought of it. That's a really astute observation. He's brutal and brutally honest and very one-minded when he's a narcissist. When he decides he cares about these people, he's completely uncomplicated in his loyalty. He's just like, "Yeah. Well, we've got to do this then." And there's something refreshing about that. There's no duplicity in him. He's horrible because he says what he thinks. And then when he loves you, he says that too. It's really good.
What else about Pretty Boy surprised you the most during production?
As a voice actor, you've got this weird challenge that you have to trust the animators are going to reflect your performance. They have cameras on you when you're doing the performance so that they can look at what you're doing with your face, so they understand your intent. But I find authenticity in performance, even though I love animation, and I've been very involved in it, and it's very easy to assume your performance should be two-dimensional... I think everyone in the cast, especially Isla, and hopefully me, when it needs to land in a place of authenticity, it's not shiny, Disney performative authenticity. It really lands. I'm really proud of that. I think the film exceeds in that way.
This is such an Australian movie through and through at every layer of the presentation. What does it mean to you to get to be a part of a film like this, especially given your history trying to get Australian animation into stuff?
I'm so proud of [Directors Clare Knight and Harry Cripps], and everyone involved. Getting an animated film through the part and out the other end, in this day and age, is really hard. It's a testament to Netflix's commitment. It leans into the Australian clichés of dangerous animals and we're all mates and all that stuff. That's kind of our brand. But then it subverts it and subverts it and subverts it. I'm interested in that. I'm very happy to represent Australia in all its glorious clichés, but I'm not interested in just selling the Crocodile Dundee over and over again. I love that about this film. It is subversive and has a massive heart.
To see just how horribly (and sweetly) stubborn Pretty Boy is, catch Back to the Outback, streaming now on Netflix.