Paul Giamatti Is Nilo In Disney’s Jungle Cruise
We hear more and more “interesting” stuff from the set of Disney’s Jungle Cruise…
Pirates of the Caribbean. The African Queen. Romancing the Stone. The Mummy.
All movies we’ve heard about inspiring Disney’s Jungle Cruise.
Image: Disney
And, given the kind of actors in those movies, isn’t it lucky big Hollywood names like Emily Blunt, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Paul Giamatti are attached.
Giamatti Is A Character
Giamatti, who won a Golden Globe in 2010 for Barney’s Version, is perhaps best known for Sideways and appeared in such films as Cinderella Man, Saving Private Ryan, and John Adams. Now, he is bringing his considerable talents as a self-professed character actor to Jungle Cruise.
Image: Disney
Recently, he told Collider’s Dave Trumbore, “I read the script and the script is really kind of amazing. It’s really nutty. It was strange and kind of fantastical. I liked it a lot.
“They gave me a lot of latitude with the character, which was nice,” added Giamatti, who plays Nilo a rich ne’er do well who lords bills over Johnson’s character Frank. “It was very well written and it was more complex than I figured it was going to be… There’s lots of really interesting stuff going on.”
Image: Disney
For many Disney fans, that “interesting stuff” won’t be a shock.
After all, of all of the attractions in the parks, “The Jungle Cruise” is certainly the most “interesting.” Really, who would have thought that one of the early rides in Disneyland would stay so popular in many Disney theme parks based mostly on the strength of the puns?
Image: Disney
An Epic Quest
But here we are, on the verge of a blockbuster summer movie based on “the backside of water.”
The boilerplate describes the film:
Image: Disney
Inspired by the famous Disneyland theme park ride, Disney’s “Jungle Cruise” is an adventure-filled, rollicking thrill-ride down the Amazon with wisecracking skipper Frank Wolff and intrepid researcher Dr. Lily Houghton… Thrust on this epic quest together, the unlikely duo encounters innumerable dangers and supernatural forces, all lurking in the deceptive beauty of the lush rainforest. But as the secrets of the lost tree unfold, the stakes reach even higher for Lily and Frank and their fate—and mankind’s—hangs in the balance.
Image: Disney
Meanwhile, the rhetorical devices continue on celluloid. Apparently, we now know the answer to the question, posited by Jose (of Enchanted Tiki Room fame), “I wonder what happened to Rosita?”
She ended up as Paul Giamatti’s sidekick in Disney’s Jungle Cruise Movie.
Image: Collider/Disney
“Yeah. I have a cockatoo in the movie,” said Giamatti. “I had wanted to have a monkey, I thought, at first. And then monkeys were going to be too difficult.
And then I wanted to have some kind of an animal and I had worked with birds before and somebody suggested the cockatoo and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s a really good idea,'” he said.
Image: Collider/Disney
You know what was another good idea, casting Paul Giamatti in Jungle Cruise. July 30th can’t come soon enough.
Check out the full Q & A with the actor on Collider.
Feature Image: Disney
