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Oklahoma City’s James Marsden is top dog in ‘Kitty Galore’

LOS ANGELES — James Marsden usually has all the actor’s tools in place for a performance — eyes, body language, facial expression and voice — but for “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,” he was only working with sound. Despite that limitation, Marsden said the process has its strong points.

“You can just sort of roll out of bed,” Marsden said during a press day at Los Angeles’ InterContinental Hotel. “Vanity gets set aside. You really don’t have to worry about going through the works. I mean, I’d be lying to you if I told you that wasn’t a part of it. That’s definitely one of the fun elements of it, is that you get to go and really focus on one tool: your vocal performance. I don’t know, voice work specifically, usually it’s not that big of a time commitment. You can go in for a couple of days or a couple of months here and there and just go in and play. I like being able to go in and just play.”

And that aspect holds a lot of sway with Marsden, 36, who was raised in Oklahoma City and graduated from Putnam City North High School in 1991. To record the lead part of Diggs, a German shepherd who works with a team of high-tech dogs and cats to defeat international arch-villain Kitty Galore, Marsden was able to do multiple takes and improvise lines with director Brad Peyton, finding just the right delivery before sending it on to the animators on the 3-D adventure.

“You don’t get that sort of safety net a lot of the time when you’re working on a film set,” Marsden said. “It’s about, ‘We need the shot before lunch. We need this. The lighting setup’s got to be this.’ It’s all you when you go in and give a vocal performance. And there’s a playful element to that that I like and would love to continue doing voice work.”

Because so much was being tailored to Marsden’s vocal performance, much of the actual work was like working blind. There were not always visual cues on the screen, so he relied on descriptions of the scene as he recorded his parts.

And in that environment, Peyton was Marsden’s seeing-eye dog.

“For this type of movie, you’re in a dark room with a microphone sitting in front of you and not a lot of imagery to go along,” he said. “We just had Brad, the director, saying, ‘Say that again, but remember that what you’re yelling at — that you can’t see right now — is actually 50 meters ahead of you, so you need to be a little louder.’ You put a lot of trust into Brad, and he is the guide. It was unlike any experience I’ve ever … experienced before, and it was very gratifying to see the final picture of all these puzzle pieces coming together. It’s great. You don’t always have that luxury on film sets to be able to play and go here and there. You’re not burning film. You’re just burning time in the studio, I guess.”

Since beginning his professional acting career in 1993, Marsden has amassed a wide range of roles, including his performances as Cyclops in the “X-Men” films, Corny Collins in “Hairspray” and Prince Edward in “Enchanted.” In the next year, Marsden will be seen in “Hop,” an Easter-themed comedy with Russell Brand, as well as the upcoming remake of Sam Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs.” And Disney has given the go-ahead for an “Enchanted” sequel but has yet to announce the full cast.

While “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore” is aimed at a young audience, Marsden said his 9-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter have become used to seeing their father in movies. But when Marsden’s son first saw his father on-screen several years ago, it took some adjustment.

“My son, when he was that age, was sort of freaked out by it,” Marsden said. “When he saw me in ‘X-Men,’ well, first of all he probably shouldn’t have been watching that. I showed him my scenes, and I later realized just the concept of seeing me in person and then seeing me on-screen. Then he grew up and sort of got into it a little bit. Now, he’s sort of over it. It’s like, now I’m sort of this dorky dad in the movies or whatever. But my daughter is getting a kick out of it now. So, it’s one of the reasons why I like doing these types of films, so that I can be a part of something that I can enjoy with my kids.”

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