LYLE, LYLE CROCODILE brings the classic children's book to the big screen, with Shawn Mendes voicing the singing crocodile who croons his way into the hearts of a family — and ultimately all of New York City.
For a human cast, making a movie in which you co-star with a big, animated crocodile is no simple task. Javier Bardem explained that there were three different on-set methods for giving the computer-generated Lyle a presence.
One option, Bardem said, "would be an actor or a dancer with some wires on his face, kind of a wire skeleton of the head of a crocodile, which was kind of scary!" Then, for scenes with a much younger Lyle, "when he was tiny, there would be a toy that you look at and it was very cute.
"But most of the time, I would say 90% of the time, it was empty space. I kind of enjoyed — the first time I was a little bit scared of it, but then I started to enjoy the process of imagining and playing with images and fantasy."
Watch our full video interview with the cast of LYLE, LYLE CROCODILE below:
LYLE, LYLE CROCODILE opens on October 7.
All images courtesy of Sony Pictures.