Disney’s original animated version of Dumbo is just 64 minutes long and actually ends right when the title character learns he can fly. The studio’s new live-action reimagining of the classic expands upon that story and introduces a lot of new characters.
During our visit to the London set of the movie, we met with a few of the stars who feature as part of the human cast and learned all about their roles and their excitement in working with director Tim Burton to bring the story to life.
Colin Farrell is The Cowboy
One of the good guys in Dumbo is Holt Farrier, played by Colin Farrell. He’s a former circus performer who was part of an act with his late wife. They were known as the Stallion Stars and did amazing roping and horse riding tricks.
Then Holt went off to fight in the Great War, during which time he lost his partner, who died while he was away, as well as one of his arms. He also returns to find his horses have all been sold off by his boss, the ringmaster. “I'm somewhat half the man I used to be,” Farrell said of his character. “Just the loss of a limb alone, the kind of awkwardness of that or the embarrassment of that is something that he carries with him.”
Now he’s back with his son and daughter at the circus and having a tough time of it. He can’t do a lot of the things he used to, in his profession or for his family. “He comes back as a single father ill-equipped to deal with parenthood and ill-equipped to deal with the changes that are taking place in the circus,” he explained. "It’s a struggle just to find his place. Mostly his struggle is to find his place in the lives of his children.”
This is Farrell’s first time working with Burton, of whom he’s been a fan for decades. “I think Edward Scissorhands is probably the first thing of his I saw. It's still one of my favorite films of all time,” he admits. “Genuinely, when I heard he was doing [Dumbo], I was like, oh god, what a dream gig to do. And that was before reading the script!”
Farrell hopes this isn’t the last collaboration, either. He said, “I’d do anything with him. As much as I wanted to work with him before I met him and worked with him, I'd even love to work with him more again a second time.”
As to what makes Burton so appealing as a director, Farrell said, "He's just really wonderful to work with. He's deeply kind. He’s so invested. To watch him on the set and see how engaged he is and how frenetic at times his energy can be and how he moves, it’s just a joy. He's just kind to everyone, and I think any of the crew would want to jump through hoops for him. I certainly know I would, and the cast would.”
Farrell believes Burton’s investment will pay off for the audience. “I can just tell you from being around Tim Burton: he's not coming to work unless he's really passionate. If he doesn't think he can make something that'll connect and have some kind of emotional reaction within the audience, he doesn't want to do it. You can just tell how connected he is to the process of making it. He's not isolated from the cast or the crew at all. He's very engaged in every single element of the whole process, and he loves it deeply. One would hope that equates with a film that connects with an audience.”
Danny DeVito is The Trickster
The one human character in the live-action Dumbo who isn’t entirely new is Danny DeVito’s circus owner, Max Medici. Similar to the ringmaster character from the animated feature, he’s the man in possession of the big-eared baby elephant, by way of purchasing his mother, Mrs. Jumbo. But he’s also someone who, given his circumstances, has to be a little crafty.
“He's a showman,” DeVito said. “He's like a Barnum, not as slick and maybe not as savvy. He’s a barker, a guy who wants to get people in and show them a good time and enjoy themselves. Buy a lot of peanuts.”
Sometimes, he might even have to do something a bit shady, like invent a fake brother. “My character has a big pressure to keep the circus alive, because it's a very tough time,” DeVito explained. “It's 1919, that's when it takes place, and they were fading, the little circuses. All the big ones were taking over.”
And when the going gets tough, Medici unfortunately has to do some disagreeable things. But he’s not a bad man. “It's more he’s a guy who's under a lot of pressure and he makes a couple decisions in the movie that are kinda obvious for a guy whose back is up against the wall,” the actor hinted. “But then, thank goodness, everything works out okay.”
Fans of the original movie won’t recognize Medici as an exact adaptation of the animated ringmaster, but DeVito revealed there was talk of him having a mustache. Then they just used that for the fake brother. Meanwhile, he wasn’t sure if the character would get to utter a favorite line. “I've got it! I've got it!,” he quoted. “I don't think that's actually in... but we're not finished.”
Dumbo is DeVito’s fourth movie with Burton — fifth if you count Burton’s cameo in the DeVito-directed Hoffa — and it’s the third where the actor plays a character associated with the circus, following his role as the Penguin in Batman Returns and the ringmaster in Big Fish. “This is the completion of the circus trilogy,” DeVito said of the reunion. “When he called me, [Tim] said exactly that: we gotta complete the circus trilogy!”
DeVito also championed Burton as a director and a friend. “I get emotional just thinking how much I care about him,” he confessed. “Always spirited, always an artist, always thinking about the craft and with his mind. He's never changed. Not a bit. We don't see each other for a really long time, and then you just pick up. He’s that kind of friend.”
Will he make more movies with Burton? “I think this is the most anyone would tolerate me,” DeVito said, wondering if he’s ever worked with another director more. “I love Tim and would do anything to be in a movie with him. I feel like I'm part of a color scheme in Kandinsky's world or something. But what are we going to do next, who knows? Something really weird. That’s an understatement.”
This time, the reunion was particularly special because Michael Keaton is also back working with Burton. “It's really fun that Michael's here. We've done a couple movies together, Michael and I, but in the last movie with Tim and Michael and I, we were both in suits,” DeVito said, referring to Batman Returns. “He was playing the good guy in that movie, I'm the good guy in this movie. There's a little bit of an evolution here.”
Joseph Gatt is The Hunter
Keaton plays the main villain in Dumbo, an entrepreneur based on a mix of P.T. Barnum and Thomas Edison named V.A. Vandevere. Most of his dirty work, though, is done by his head of security, Neils Skellig, a sort of henchman role played by character actor Joseph Gatt.
“The way I like to describe Skellig is If you imagine that Vandevere is the Emperor, I'm Darth Vader,” Gatt said of his part. “Basically, he's the more powerful - you know, he's in charge of everything, and I just do his bidding and go around just being evil.”
Skellig is also a hunter. “I don't like animals very much. So, as you can imagine, I get on really well with Dumbo and Mrs. Jumbo,” Gatt joked. “Most people see Dumbo as this cute big-eared pachyderm, with the big eyes and lashes, and I see him as something that would look nice on my wall, perhaps, or maybe a new jacket. We have a lot of interesting interactions that don't end very well, generally for me.”
As a result of his hatred for the elephants, Skellig has his own ideas of how to deal with them, and fortunately for him he is somewhat left alone in that. “We figured out from the start that my character wouldn't be very subservient to Vandevere. Again, pretty similar to Darth Vader. He ultimately takes orders from the Emperor, but you're just as scared of him, if not more scared of him, because he’s his own powerful character and makes his own decisions. Skellig is exactly the same. Left to his own devices, who knows what Skellig would do. Probably rid the whole world of elephants.”
Gatt described a scene in which he gets to be especially dastardly. It’s after Medici’s circus is integrated into Vandevere’s Dreamland attraction and Dumbo and Mrs. Jumbo have been separated. Dumbo escapes from his tent and flies around looking for his mother. “It's incredibly cute. And, of course, it's my job to ruin all of that. And to find Dumbo and capture him and bring him back,” Gatt said.
“And then we have to obviously get rid of this distraction, being his mother, and I have to do that. But I cannot tell you if we actually do get rid of the distraction,” he teased. “Let's just say I'm given the task of putting everything in order.”
Gatt also had good things to say about Burton. “He just cares so much. I don't think I've worked with a director that cares about everything so much,” he confessed. “He cares so much about the actors being comfortable in what they're doing and feeling safe. There's no pressure on set, even though, you know, it's this huge studio feature, a lot of money at stake, etc. You never feel that. Everyone just seems so calm and in control.”
He also shared why he believes Dumbo is going to be a huge movie. “It's almost like Disney is making a new Mickey Mouse movie,” Gatt explained. “You take Mickey Mouse and a picture of Dumbo and show them to anyone anywhere in the world and they’ll go, ‘That’s Mickey Mouse, and that's Dumbo.’ Even the Disney Princesses, most people won't know which one is which, but everybody knows Dumbo. So it's such an amazing privilege to be part of Disney doing this, because it’s like this nice heritage.”
