Charlize Theron and Matthew McConaughey Praise KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS’ Themes

By Carlos Aguilar.

With three Academy Award nominations under its belt, Laika, the Portland-based stop-motion animation studio, returns this week with their most ambitious project to date, “Kubo and the Two Strings,” a Japanese-inspired tale about a brave young boy who goes on a fantastic quest that uniquely tackles loss and compassion. Directed by Travis Knight, who is also the head of company, the beautiful handcrafted images are enhanced by a voice cast comprise of some of Hollywood’s biggest names.

In a recent press conference to promote the film, Knight, Art Parkinson, who voices Kubo, and Oscar-winners Charlize Theron (Monkey) and Matthew McConaughey (Beetle), spoke to the press about their experience in the making of this project. “We started Laika about 10 years ago and we had a pretty simple mandate, which was to make movies that mattered,” said Knight who is making his directorial debut with “Kubo.” With the mission to explore complex aspect of the human experience through animation, Knight channeled a particularly influential trip for inspiration, “When I was a kid I loved big, epic fantasies and that was what this film was. When I was around 8-years-old I went to Japan for the first time. Being in Japan was unlike anything else I had ever experienced.” Filmmakers like Akira Kurosawa and Hayao Miyazaki are strong influences for the Laika’s leader.

Similarly, young Art Parkinson connected to his character via his own experiences, especially in the sequences between Kubo and his mother. Parkinson explained that he considers his mother his greatest mentor, just like both Monkey and Beetle, voiced by Theron and McConaughey respectively, are to the story’s hero. On the other hand, Parkinson also feels connected to Kubo through the acting craft, “He brings characters to life with his music and with his origami, and I’d like to think that I bring characters to life with what I do.”

“The story is incredibly moving, really layered, and eclectic. It covers a lot of things that I think we are sometimes scared to address with children,” said Theron, a mother of two, about the themes included in the film’s narrative. “Thematically there really isn’t anything that they can’t in an interesting way explore through children’s eyes.” She continued to praise Knight and his team about the artistry and dedication that goes into creating stop-motion works like this, “From the first moment that I met Travis when we started having a conversation about this, there was something very clear about what he was trying to set out to do. I think it was finding a way to tell a story through a great character but also through a real sense of world. It was very hard for him to talk about character without talking about world.”

McConaughey concurred and shared details about the experience of watching the finished film with his family, “Laika has never pandered to kids. It’s always about what are considered adult themes but which are things that every child can understand and digest. I got to watch it with my wife and my two eldest, who are 7 and 5, there were tears, my wife said she cried about 9 times, and there was also laughter.” Following the screening, McConaughey explained, his children had questions about the life lessons they witnessed on screen, “I had a long talk with my kids about courage and overcoming your fears.” Sneakily, the actor didn’t tell them what role he‘d played in the film, but as soon as they watched the film they recognized his voice, which turned him into a hero for a few days around the house.

Fittingly given the film at hand, the actors were asked which animated film or characters had marked their childhood. Theron explained that television didn’t arrive to her native South Africa until the mid-70s, but she mentioned that the VCR was a game changer that finally allowed her to watch classics such as the Looney Tunes – something that she tries to share with her children. McConaughey mentioned the fantastical TV show “Land of the Lost” as one he holds dearly, while Parkinson, the youngest cast member in attendance, cited Disney’s “The Lion King” and “The Jungle Book” as his favorites.

Focus Features’ “Kubo and the Two Strings” is now playing nationwide.

Kubo lives a quiet, normal life in a small shoreside village until a spirit from the past turns his life upside down by re-igniting an age-old vendetta. This causes all sorts of havoc as gods and monsters chase Kubo who, in order to survive, must locate a magical suit of armor once worn by his late father, a legendary Samurai warrior.