Although Abigail Breslin appears as an animated rodent in “Rango,” the teen actress actually worked alongside her co-stars, rather than doing solo voice-over work in a recording studio. This means she actually got to work with that legendary heartthrob Johnny Depp, right?
“I don’t know if I’d say that he’s a heartthrob,” the actress laughs hysterically as a blush spreads over her face.
She then regains a sense of diplomatic composure beyond her 14 years.
“He’s definitely a really nice guy and I’ve always loved the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ movies,” she says, “so it was really cool to get to work with him.”
Whether or not the exchange marks a definitive generation gap concerning which actors may or may not be considered heartthrobs is debatable. But what is certain is that “Little Miss Sunshine” herself is growing up. Nowhere was this more evident than when she went to do some overdubs for “Rango” as it was nearing completion.
“The director, Gore Verbinski, was like, ‘You need to make your voice sound higher,’ because my voice was lowered because I’m almost 15 and I was only 12 when I did it,” she says of the beginning of the “Rango” process. “I was like, ‘That’s not happening with the adult actors,’ so I tried to just Chipmunk-ify my voice.”
On talking the talk
Our interview with Breslin took place in the lounge of a Boston hotel. After about 10 minutes of conversation, talk turned to accents. Breslin and her mother, who was sitting with her, expressed a little disappointment that this reporter didn’t have a very strong Boston affectation. The 14-year-old Abigail has a very Southern accent in “Rango.”
“I’m from New York,” she says, “so I worked with a dialect coach, and Gore wanted it to sound, not like pretty Southern, but gruff.”
