Tom McGrath and Ramsey Ann Naito Talk The Boss Baby

Very warm welcome to director Tom McGrath and producer Ramzi Naito with DreamWorks The Boss Baby. Thank you Judith. Thank you for having us. We are loving Miami. Oh wonderful, wonderful. Any inspirations maybe or influence with the flavor here? Some new voices perhaps? The restaurants are amazing. The food you get in this town is fantastic. Cuban sandwich, Joe's Stonecraft.

Yep. So we've been doing the restaurant tour. Wonderful, wonderful. Now the movie, funny, it is inventive, heartwarming with just enough adorable so that it's not obnoxious. Okay, yeah. But throughout the, with all the different layers in the process, was there any part of the process that was particularly rewarding or frustrating to do? Is there something that you enjoy most about it?

I think like because you know everyone who, including us, I come at it from the brother's point of view. Ramzi comes at it from the mother's point of view. And everyone who worked on this film, and to make an animated movie you need, if you watch end credits, you see that there's 500 people that work on these movies. But everyone fell in love with the story because everyone could connect with the story whether you have a brother or sister or you're a parent or you have an awful boss.

Or you have a dog. Which is not us, or a dog. Yeah. And so we had a lot of fun making it. There was, you know, the challenge for us is there's so much material. How do we condense it down into an 85 minute movie? That's, yes, that was impressive to see that because I can come at it from the perspective of a parent and I can recall back to when my sister arrived.

Yeah, I see. So I have vivid memories. So were there any particular personal experiences that you thought this has to make it in the film or has to be translated into the film somehow? When Tom sent me the script three and a half years ago, I literally thought it was a reflection of my life because I'm the mother of three kids. My first son was seven just like Tim Templeton when my second son arrived and he was really jealous.

So the one thing I love about this film is watching these two guys fall in love with one another and finding the value of family. So I think while the movie is told in Tim's point of view and it goes to places we haven't seen and it's creative and it's authentic. For me I feel like the emotional story and tracking these guys falling in love with one another was something that I was really connected to.

But there is one really funny scene where Tim is riding his bike and he hits a tree and the mom comes running to him and he's like, "I'm okay, I'm okay." And the mom says, "Show mommy your teeth, show mommy your teeth." I mean it's really, yeah. That's a really good one. Absolutely. That one stood out for me as well. For me I had an older brother who's two years older and we were best friends and they were worst enemies together.

So there's a lot of our story of how we got along in there. But at the end of the day we're both adults now, we love each other, he's my best friend. So this is an apology letter to my brother 50 years in the making. I love that. And so I think everyone can come at this from a very personal point of view because we've all experienced family or awful bosses.

So the goal for us was to entertain the parents as much as the kids and we just wanted to make a family movie that everyone could laugh at it from a certain point of view. We've been calling it a date movie for family. Absolutely, absolutely because that was achieved just from all perspectives. And I think even people without children can relate whether it's from their past as you said with a dog, a cat, what have you.

Everyone has experienced that feeling of displacement and perhaps taken it sensitively. With all the time that you have spent together have you been inspired to maybe try out your skills at voices or has Skipper come along to -- She'd be good, she'd be really good. You did 10 voices, sometimes we throw in just scratch voices. I always get cut, I always get cut.

How? I don't know. If I can get a taste. But he's the one who is the master of voices. As a producer you can't really hire yourself, it's really not. No. [Laughter] But yeah, I mean better than us acting we just have the most incredible cast. Alec Baldwin, Coudreaux, Jimmy Kimmel, Steve Buscemi, Toby McGuire. And I think Tom's experience as a voice actor really enhanced and helped hone in your style of directing, especially in the booth with these guys.

And it was magical. I mean seeing Tom work with Alec Baldwin was -- I mean I literally had to pinch myself and bite script pages in order not to just laugh so hard. [Laughter] Thank you so much and enjoy the rest of your stay. You want me to do a Skipper? A little bit of Skipper? A little bit of Skipper? No. A smile and wave boys. [Laughter] [Music]