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At Disney’s D23 Expo in Anaheim, California, I was lucky enough to get a chance to head backstage and chat with the people behind the upcoming Disney film Zootopia starring Ginnifer Goodwin as a bunny cop and Jason Bateman as a con artist fox who have to team up to solve a crime in a city full of anthropomorphic animals. I got to talk to Goodwin, directors Byron Howard and Rich Moore as well as producer Clark Spencer.

Goodwin, who was thrilled to be doing her last interview so she could take off her high heels, talked about her character Judy Hopps and her relationship with the other animals. “I feel like, as much as it is an adventure film, and as much as it is a comedy, I mean, I cried when I read the script and I cry in our sessions, because I think that the friendship between these characters is really beautiful. And it’s not a friendship based on any romantic undertone either. It’s just a genuine, pure, combative, opposites attract friendship. And I think that, because these characters learn so much about themselves, and – I don’t want to say ‘open to change,’ but forced to change because of their friendship, I feel like there’s a lot to be gleaned for real life. I think it’s a powerful story.” She said it’s great to play a character that won’t show up on Once Upon a Time and laughed about how she’d be upset if anyone played Judy but her.

The film makers told us that we aren’t going to see any reptiles or birds in this animal city, but teased that we may see them in a future film. I asked them about what these animals eat if they’re so evolved that they don’t eat each other. “Bugs,” they told me. They eat bugs, which are very nutritious. Spencer told me that when they were in Mexico, he had crickets and said they were delicious. So delicious in fact, that he was craving them on the spot!

 

Let us know if you’re excited for the film. Zootopia opens nationwide March 4, 2016.

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Jenna Busch

Jenna Busch is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Legion of Leia and has hosted and written for sites like Nerdist, ComingSoon.net, Metro, Birth. Movies. Death., IGN, AOL, Huffington Post and more. She co-hosted Cocktails With Stan with the legendary Stan Lee and has appeared on Attack of the Show, Fresh Ink, Tabletop with Wil Wheaton, in the documentary She Makes Comics, on NPR and Al Jazeera America, and has covered film/TV/gaming/comics for years. She's currently a co-host on Most Craved. She's been published in the comics anthology Womanthology, is a chapter author for Star Wars Psychology: Dark Side of the Mind, Game of Thrones Psychology and Star Trek Psychology and more, and owns a terrifying amount of swords and 20-sided dice. There are also those My Little Pony trailer voice overs that give one nightmares.