Remarkably Bright Creatures (premiering this Friday May 8th on Netflix) is a new live-action film, based on a popular novel, with a central CG character. Two-time Oscar winner Sally Field plays Tova, the cleaning lady at an aquarium who forms a unique friendship with resident octopus Marcellus (voiced by Alfred Molina). Director Olivia Newman (Where the Crawdads Sing) joins me for this Animation Scoop Q&A to discuss the excitement and challenges of bringing Marcellus to life. (This Interview was edited for length and clarity. Images Courtesy of Netflix.)

Jackson Murphy: What were your early visions of how you wanted to present this friendship and show the humanity in all of this?

Olivia Newman: It was always really important to me that the octopus be as photoreal as possible so that the world of the film felt grounded, in a real place. And so from our very early discussions, we were trying to figure out if we could actually shoot an actual octopus, whether an octopus could be trained like other animals in a movie. We learned very early on that was not possible because octopuses are way too smart to listen to humans. And so then the discussions began about how to create a CGI version of an octopus that looked as close to real as possible.

JM: The red-orange skin of Marcellus looks thick, layered, very intricate and interesting. What kinds of studying and research did you really do to make it look as good as it does?

ON: Before we even started prep on the movie, we spent about six months doing research into how to accomplish creating an octopus that looked real. We had an incredible visual effects team that was run by Chris Ritvo, who was originally at MPC. And then when MPC folded a few weeks before we started shooting, he very quickly pivoted and put back together a team with a studio called Untold. And we watched hundreds of hours of octopus footage to make sure that any of the behavior that you see our octopus do in the movie is based on what an actual octopus can do. Untold would present me with a version of the octopus’ blocking. They would always include reference material to an actual octopus doing the same thing. And the back and forth between looking at real octopuses and looking at our CG over time was always to match what a real octopus would look like.

JM: That’s very cool. And you’ve got actors like Sally Field and Lewis Pullman (who plays Cameron), who are touching Marcellus at certain points. There are scenes where you could see the octopus under wires and lots of configurations of that. That must have been challenging and interesting for them. What are they playing to, and what were some of the challenges of all that?

ON: It was very challenging. We had a couple of different puppets built. One that was an exact replica in terms of size and color, mostly for our lighting reference for our cinematographer that we could put into the tank, that we could put under the table, anywhere we needed to have that kind of lighting reference. And then we also had a more malleable puppet that was weighted to feel the same weight as the octopus for the moments where Sally had to actually pick him up and move him into a bucket or kind of be manhandling the octopus. So we always did a take where we used a puppet, and then we would remove the puppet, and our brilliant actors would have to imagine what the octopus was doing. And then in post, obviously, we would just make sure that however we positioned the octopus made sense with what their hands were doing.

JM: Marcellus is [sometimes] camouflage. He can blend into various surroundings. Those are some of the best moments of Sally and Lewis bonding in the movie, as well as seeing how the camouflage works. So that must’ve been pretty cool as well to work with your team on those moments.

ON: Yeah, and that was the great thing about having CGI. We could build in layers into Marcellus’s coloring and then bring out certain colors or pull them back whenever we needed to show a change, either for camouflage or when he’s feeling sick or when he’s out of the tank versus in the tank. That gave us a lot of flexibility.

JM: Marcellus is voiced by Alfred Molina, who brings so much depth to this voice performance with this unique and powerful narration guiding us throughout the movie. Was he the first choice for you, having him in mind, and how was it working with him on this material?

ON: Oh my gosh. Alfred is just an absolute dream of an actor to work with, and I was humbled that he was willing to come in and do this for us. Working with him, even though we were just in an ADR booth, he used his whole physicality to really try to embody Marcellus. And so he’d be watching the scenes on the screen, and you could see him trying to move through the water and through the space to really get the feel of what Marcellus felt like. And I knew that I wanted somebody who could sound very wise and haughty and snarky, but also had real heart. I also wanted the octopus to sound like he was from the Pacific Northwest, so we talked about the accent, and it was important to me that he sound as close to an American Pacific Northwest octopus as possible. But we also were like, if he comes off a little odd sounding, that’s okay too because he doesn’t have to… he is an octopus… nobody knows what a Pacific Northwest English-speaking octopus actually sounds like. I think we found just the right the right balance.

JM: He’s really good with this performance. And what Marcellus offers in terms of this big story about different people of different generations and life experiences and tragedy and new eras of your life — all of that is through what Marcellus is going through as well. So you unravel a lot over the course of the movie. Was there anything that you were really wanting to focus on or interested in when it comes to the big picture themes of this movie?

ON: I think you touched on it. It was important to understand that these three characters in the movie are all going through similar experiences where they’re all at a turning point in their lives. Marcellus knows that he doesn’t have much time left before he dies. Tova is entering this new chapter where she feels like she has to figure out whether to leave her house and go to a retirement community or if there’s some other purpose she can serve now that she’s no longer a wife or a mother. And then you have Cameron who’s in his 30s and feeling completely untethered, and his friends are moving on, and he’s still holding on to perhaps more childhood dreams. And so they’re all in this place of feeling a bit lost. To be able to show at different ages with different creatures and different species how similar we all are across a generational divide, across a species divide, and that really finding purpose and is a way to find joy. And so much of that comes through our connections with other humans, other creatures… having that community really is the thing that can make us feel like we have purpose.

JM: I think a lot of people will get a lot out of the themes of this movie. There’s a line early on referencing “Night at the Museum”. That movie had a huge impact in terms of what families can experience from a museum. This movie shows the impact for all ages and generations of aquariums. Do they personally resonate for you? Do you have experiences of going to aquariums throughout your life?

ON: Yeah, as a child going to aquariums. Bringing my children to aquariums. I had this wonderful experience early on when I was first involved with the project where I got to go and have an octopus experience with my daughter, where we actually got to touch an octopus and let it feel our arms, and it was just one of the most… I don’t even know how to describe it. I wanna say it was one of the most magical experiences, but it was also just incredibly overwhelming because I realized just how strong their suckers are. And because they have eight arms and you never know where the next one is coming from, you can immediately feel a bit at the mercy of this creature. It’s just awe-inspiring to come in contact with this whole life that lives beneath the ocean and that we never get to see, but we know that it’s out there. And so I think that’s the wonder of aquariums is we get to have this peak at a world that we normally are cut off from.

JM: I love that you had that experience with your daughter. That’s fantastic. And so now after all the work that you put into Marcellus and all that you learned with it and explored with it, are you interested in diving into more animation and VFX type sequences and work in your future films?

ON: I would certainly not be as afraid of it as I was on this because I had such an incredible team and learned so much through the process of working with them. And I feel like we set the bar really high for ourselves, and we managed to get there. And so for me, as long as I have the right people by my side, I feel like anything is achievable. So yeah, I would be excited. Yes, for sure.