What tempted you back for the sequel?
I guess it was the chance to work with everybody again, Geena [Davis] and Hugh [Laurie], along with the fact that I couldn't bear to see it put into anyone else's hands! For the first one I'd been given this chance to do a live animation for the very first time and learnt so much doing it that by the time we'd finished, I'd only just figured out how to do it. Now that I knew, I had to do it again.
Was it easier the second time?
I think it was more fun the second time round because having gone through the process before, having understood who the character was and having the actors know him too, we had a much better idea of how things would pan out. On the first picture the actors didn't know who Stuart was because he never showed up. They'd shoot their scenes and there'd be nothing there. They didn't know anything about him until they saw the movie, but this time they had something to relate to.
What did you think about M Night Shyamalan's comments that the original "Stuart Little" was a lot cruder than the version he himself wrote?
I think he was right. I had nothing against his script, it was just that I wanted to appeal to people of all ages and I felt his script was for a much younger audience. It was very charming and twee but having a cute little mouse in it already, I was afraid of making it a bit too sugary. I wanted it to be a bit more mainstream.
How did you get Melanie Griffith involved, given that's she never done an animation feature before?
She's got kids so I think that was the big attraction for her. We needed a voice that was worldly but girlish at the same time, and Melanie fitted that criteria. She was nervous to begin with because she's so used to acting to camera and feeding off another actor, but she got into it in the end. Michael J Fox was a big help to her.
Would you ever go back to the conventional animation of "The Lion King"?
You can only really do that at Disney or DreamWorks because it's such a difficult thing to do. It requires so much artistic expertise, and a huge team of sketchers. You just don't find enough people out there who can do it, who have the skills to be animators and draw as well. With CGI you only need half the package, you just need animators. At the moment CGI is more exciting to me because it's new and fun.
Is it true you're in line to direct "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"?
"Charlie" took an interesting turn. I was supposed to meet with Liccy Dahl, Roald Dahl's widow, who's producing the remake, but because of my responsibilities on "Stuart Little 2" I couldn't get away to meet with her which, after me not going to meet her, put the whole thing into question. I guess she figured that if I didn't jump on a plane over to London to meet her, then too bad. But it's not out of the question either. There was a time when it was almost a definite guarantee but we'll see. They have hired a writer to write the script but from what I understand, her draft isn't finished yet. They are going to send it to me when it is.
