Jamie Foxx improvised “a funny line” in his new talking-dog comedy “Strays.”
In the gross-out canine comedy, the Oscar-winning actor voices Bug, a stray Boston Terrier who teaches abandoned Border Terrier “Reggie,” voiced by Will Ferrell, the ways of the streets.
While shooting one scene, Benny the dog, who portrayed Bug in the film, became startled by a leaf, so director Josh Greenbaum decided to leave it in the movie and let the voice actor have some fun with it.
“There’s a moment in the film where little angry Bug is walking through the woods by himself, and randomly a leaf fell out of a tree and it scared the dog pants off Benny the dog, who plays Bug. So I thought, ‘Oh, that’s funny. That’s a weird behavior,’” Greenbaum recalled to Consequence.
“We tweaked the script a little bit, and then I showed it to Jamie Foxx and he improvised a funny line – Bug’s talking about how ‘I’m not lonely, I’m not scared, I’m not scared of anything.’ And then he jumps because the leaf falls, and then Jamie Foxx goes, ‘F### you, leaf!’”
Elsewhere in the interview, Greenbaum explained that he wanted Foxx and Ferrell to record their parts together rather than in separate booths.
“I encouraged/insisted that they come in together. And luckily they all were game – I think Will and Jamie were very excited to work together, they had never worked together before,” he explained. “So they did all of their sessions in a room together, pretty much all of them, and that makes all the difference in the world, performance-wise.”
“Strays,” also featuring the voices of Isla Fisher and Randall Park, is in cinemas now.