Courtney Howard // Film Critic
Theodor Seuss Geisel is a legend. Under the pen name Dr. Seuss, he tapped into the zany silliness that dwells in the hearts and imaginations of children and adults, writing many rhyming proses and drawing whimsical characters that colored our worlds. Written and illustrated in 1957, THE CAT IN THE HAT became one of those books found on the shelf of every child’s home library. And now, the titular icon returns to the animated medium in Warner Brothers Animation’s THE CAT IN THE HAT.
In this adaptation written and directed by Erica Rivinoja and Alessandro Carloni, the clever, chapeau-sporting feline (voiced by Bill Hader) brings his patented mischievous spirit into the human world, direct to the doorstep of a pair of siblings having a difficult time with their recent move to a new town.
During a recent trailer release event held virtually, Rivinoja, Carloni and Hader spoke to the assembled press about what we can look forward to. We thought it would be fun to break down the details.
The book served as a jumping off point for their film. Carloni said, “We kind of used the book more of a jumping point for us in the sense that the book became a question for us, which is, ‘Is this cat really just out there to have a good time for himself and making a mess, or is there more to it?’ Our movie becomes an expansion on that adventure. We decided to follow the cat at the end of the book to find out where does this guy go and discover, in fact, the truth about him.”
The infamous rascally cat’s creation. Rivinoja said of the character, “He’s really this sort of wish-fulfillment character. We call him [an] agent of chaos. It’s just sort of what every kid loves and wants is to just sort of have this day of craziness and chaos, and we’ve really tried to bring in what people love about the original book.” Hader valued it as an opportunity to play. “[I] remember reading that book as a kid, and then reading it to my kids. It’s such an iconic character. I chased it.”
Bill Hader found voice acting exhausting.He told us, “You’re essentially just screaming for 4 hour and then you’re saying the same lines over and over again, and they just start to lose meaning. They’ve watched me have full-on existential crisis in the [recording] booths. I have to very consciously pace myself, because you do just get so tired screaming.”
There’s a little improv included. Hader even riffs on his James Mason and Herbert Marshall impressions he honed on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. He said, “They were loose with …. they wrote this incredibly funny script and they were like, ‘Try stuff.’” Carloni added, “There’s one scene in which the character has to literally move backward in time. We usually use filters and digital techniques to rewind voices, but he’s able to create the sound of a voice moving forward and warping and playing backward. We had to tell our animators, ‘Just so you know, that’s actually Bill Hader.”
THE CAT IN THE HAT embraces different aesthetics to help tell its story. Carloni stated, “The unique thing is it’s the only Seuss book where a magical, whimsical character enters the real world to meet the children. We decided to try to embrace that and enhance that. We’re navigating the fantastical world, we created an entirely different looks of picture, entirely different aesthetics. Entirely different animation styles. So our world in our movie is based on many, many different worlds and different aesthetics where we traverse through in our adventure.”
He later elucidated, “When we discover the cat works in a specific place, we decided that could be the Seuss world in the rendering of our surfaces and in the shape language. Then the cat enters the real world where it’s far more grounded and believable. It’s not quite photorealistic – still very stylized, but still much more believable and relatable when it comes to the behavior of the light and the look of the movie. Then the Cat will take these kids on a fantastical journey through their own memories in order to understand and empower them in what they need to do in our story’s journey. And that third world becomes yet another aesthetic, yet another stylization for animation.”
The animators tie in the actors’ physicality and mannerisms. Rivinoja stated, “We shoot something called Lipstick Cam, which is where we have the actors’ performances recorded. It makes it so much easier for the actors, especially doing lip sync, and for the animators to get expressions. We definitely use a lot of Bill’s physicality for that.” Hader joked, “It’s always bad as an actor, when you hear the animator’s scratch track of my lines, and you just are like, ‘That’s really good. I don’t know how I’m gonna beat that. That’s really funny.”
Other characters in their Seussian World. In the teaser, you’ll spot the fleet of Seuss’s chaos dispersing Thing creatures. Rivinoja stated, “There’s so many new characters in this movie, but they all feel like Suess.” She added, “There’s Sherry from HR, which is played by Quinta Brunson. The Cat in the Hat and Sherry from HR are best friends.”
Comedy is key. Rivinoja said, “We wanted to make ourselves laugh with it. There’s some sneaky stuff in there for adults. Dr. Seuss had that sophisticated humor that worked on all levels, and we just really wanted to reach into that and have really fun wordplay, but also, you know, it’s animation. What are we doing if we’re not having physical comedy and big jokes?” Carloni added, “This book comes preloaded with a multi-generational fan base, who have expectations about this character, and that love this character, so hopefully we’ll make them all proud.”
THE CAT IN THE HAT opens in theaters on February 27, 2026.
