- Do you think the city has been well represented?
From what I've been hearing it is pretty much the essence of Rio, and Carlos has been trying to avoid the stereotypes. Of course, some of them are in there, but he’s captured the essence of the people and their culture.
- Were you familiar with Carlos' work before making the movie?
I'd not seen Ice Age, 1, 2 or 3, but I just liked him. I didn’t even need to see them - he was nice enough that I just couldn’t say no.
I'd have just felt too bad. He had a love for this thing and it would have been terrible to say 'I'm not doing it.' In fact, I didn't want to see Ice Age in case I didn't like it!
- You wrote and performed a song for the movie too - was that always part of the plan?
At first Carlos described the song that he wanted the bird Nigel to sing, and I thought that was cool, but I didn't realize he wanted me to write it! Then I was getting these emails - 'How's the song going?'
Then I realized and said, 'Yeah, going good...' I can't remember any moment when he’d asked me to write it - I just found myself having to do it!
- Having found out, did it come easy?
No - I didn't know how to record it. I had a laptop and I didn’t know where the microphone was on it and I didn’t have any of the gear. But when I realized he wanted me to write it, I re-listened to Jungle Book songs and stuff like that. I'm also a big Sergio Mendes fan, so I listened to a lot of that as well.
- Did he have any input on the song?
He played piano on it, and I was nervous when I found that out. I'd started by saying I’ll try and do a Sergio Mendes-type song, and they said, 'Oh we'll get him to play on it.'
It was really exciting but I was nervous as well. When he heard it, he heard a beat in it and he said, 'That’s not Bosa Nova, that's Cuban.' Oh no!
Rio - The Ultimate Party Edition releases on DVD and Blu-ray 24th October 2011