Peter Cattaneo says the choice to work with actual penguins on his new film ‘The Penguin Classes’ introduced a set of distinctive challenges.
The director’s heartfelt comedy-drama relies on Tom Michell’s 2016 memoir which paperwork the British trainer’s transfer to a boarding faculty in Argentina in 1876 and the way his life and the varsity are reworked by an orphaned penguin he rescues from an oil slick on a seashore.
The movie was shot in Spain and stars Steve Coogan as Tom and Jonathan Pryce as the varsity’s headmaster alongside their penguin co-stars, and Peter admits the outdated showbiz adage “by no means work with kids or animals” has some validity.
In an unique interview with BANG Showbiz on the movie’s UK premiere on the Curzon Mayfair in London on Thursday night time (03.04.25), Cattaneo stated: “In ‘The Penguin Classes’, the co-stars are penguins, in order that was at all times going to be a problem.”
Regardless of the daunting activity of working with dwell animals, Cattaneo — director of ‘The Full Monty’ (1997) and ‘Navy Wives’ (2019) — made up his thoughts early on that he would use actual penguins to inform the heart-warming story.
He stated: “The primary resolution was to positively use actual penguins and never go for CGI. I felt we’d simply get extra authenticity, extra character and heat, out of an actual penguin.
“Then it was discovering nice animal handlers, at all times ensuring that penguins had been very well-cared for [and] by no means requested to do something that wasn’t pure for them.”
Cattaneo famous that a very powerful factor in coping with the dwell birds on set was “endurance, actually, endurance”,
Tony Award-winner Sir Jonathan Pryce had only one scene with a penguin co-star — which was greater than sufficient for him.
The ‘Gradual Horses’ actor stated: “Each time I opened my mouth, [the penguin] circled and walked out, which was amusing in itself however made for a barely lengthy day. It was nice to be concerned in scenes that I had no specific accountability for and watch the mayhem the penguin was creating, as a result of they do not at all times do what you need them to do.”
‘The Penguin Classes’ first screened in September 2024 on the Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant, the place Cattaneo stated the group was “actually thrilled” with its “surprisingly constructive” reception.
The British filmmaker stated: “It isn’t an out-and-out comedy. It simply has, I feel, loads of observational humour, plenty of laughs. You then hear folks sniffing and crying as effectively. What may very well be extra rewarding for a filmmaker than to have laughs and tears?”
The movie could have its UK broad launch on Friday, April 18.
