Richard Crouse

By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada

The new animated film Spark: A Space Tail boasts an a-list cast, actors who haven’t done a lot of kid’s films. In an e-mail conversation with Susan Sarandon, whose voice appears alongside Patrick Stewart, Jessica Biel and Hilary Swank, the Dead Man Walking star says she took the role because, “I’ve never played a robot before.”

In the Canada-South Korea co-production she plays Bananny, the automaton nanny for the teen chimp Spark. He’s an ape and her name is a play on the word banana, the preferred simian snack. It’s that kind of movie. Once the prince of a planet of the apes called Bana (banana without the “na,” get it?), Spark lives on a tiny slice of his former home, one of many planetary bits blown into space thirteen years ago following a coup by the Napoleon-esque Zhong.

The actress, who recently won raves playing Bette Davis on the decidedly-not-for-children hit television series Feud, says the best kid’s flicks are movies, “both adults and kids can enjoy simultaneously and [ones that don’t] patronize the children. Real emotion. When the kids save the day.”

Without giving away too much, the new film stays close to the Thelma and Louise actress’ ethos. The movie draws from Star Wars, WALL-E and just about every other adolescent-in-space movie where the young’uns are the unexpected heroes.

Spark lives with former royal guard members, Vix and Chunk, warriors whose job is to protect, train and prepare Spark for his destiny—the recapture of the kingdom. He’s an underdog kids will identify with.

As a child the Oscar winner was drawn to movies with strong central characters. Her favourites included The Boy With the Green Hair, an anti-bullying movie starring Dean Stockwell and Bambi, the Disney classic about strength in the face of extreme adversity.

Sarandon, whose previous voice work includes decidedly adult entries like the female outlaw story Cassius and Clay, the comedy Hell and Back, about two friends whop must rescue a friend accidentally dragged to Hades, and kid’s flicks like the fantasy James and the Giant Peach and Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, says the animated films she gets offered differ from live action, particularly in the realm of kid’s entertainment. Children’s animated films more primal, basic, she says. “Animation allows for more fantastical stories without being too real or scary.”

Children’s animation, with no-holds-barred visuals and wild stories, she asserts, are good for kids but ultimately she takes an old school position on the significance of cartoons in the development of a child’s imagination.

“I think books are the most important, but animation tackles a lot of social interaction, so it’s really important to make sure that the moral of the story is a good, positive one.”