Alyson Hannigan on ‘Flora & Ulysses’: It’s all about the squirrel.
When talking to Alyson Hannigan about the Disney+ fantasy film “Flora & Ulysses,” it’s clear that she was born to do this movie.
Adapted from the popular and prestigious (it won the Newberry Medal) Kate DiCamilo (“The Tale of Despereaux”) novel, “Flora” has Hannigan as Phyllis Buckman, a beleaguered single mom whose only child, Flora (Matilda Lawler), hasn’t adjusted to her parents’ recent split.
Flora becomes caretaker for an injured squirrel. After being sucked into a vacuum cleaner and nearly killed, the resurrected rodent is named Ulysses by Flora – and surprisingly develops superpowers.
Hannigan, right at the start of a Zoom interview, is asked: Has she ever had a close personal relationship with …a squirrel? Even one who does not fly and write poetry?
The answer is yes!
“Anthony Head, who played Giles on ‘Buffy (the Vampire Slayer’), lives in Bath,” Hannigan, 46, began.
“He and his partner Sarah found a hurt baby squirrel outside their house and nursed it back to health (they’re incredibly with animals).
“When it was big enough to go back out, they opened the kitchen door and released it. The squirrel left, looked around and then ran back into the kitchen. They did that, like, for weeks. The squirrel was like, ‘No thanks. I like your house just fine.’
“So, they suddenly had a pet squirrel. Because they could’t for the life of them get this squirrel to go live in nature again.
“They built a huge squirrel enclosure with trees and all this stuff, so when I went to go visit them I got to ho hang out with – his male was Snippy.”
Going inside the enclosure meant, “Really significant clothing because their claws are so sharp. And this incredible squirrel would just wander all over you. It was awesome!”
Filming “Flora” meant Ulysses on set was, she revealed, “Sometimes it was a taped X on a pole. There was a mirror ball, which was for the CGI part. And then there was also a bone squirrel.
“My daughters” – youngest is 8, her sister is 13 in March – “came to the set and saw how we did things and everything.
“But while we were watching it, my youngest would repeatedly ask me, ‘How did they get a squirrel to do that?’
“Which made me go, ‘You know I didn’t get to work with a squirrel,’ Then a bit later she was, ‘That’s a really smart squirrel.’ Because she just got so engrossed that she forgot that this is a movie.
“That’s a really good sign because in his movie the squirrel is just everything.”
Original article at Boston Herald.
This article has been reproduced for archive purposes.
