Interview: Zooey Deschanel & Lil Rel Howery on Harold and the Purple Crayon

ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to Harold and the Purple Crayon stars Lil Rel Howery and Zooey Deschanel about Sony Pictures’ family comedy movie. The duo discussed working with Jemaine Clement, their characters, and more. The film will be released exclusively in movie theaters on August 2, 2024.

“Inside of his book, adventurous Harold (Zachary Levi) can make anything come to life simply by drawing it. After he grows up and draws himself off the book’s pages and into the physical world, Harold finds he has a lot to learn about real life—and that his trusty purple crayon may set off more hilarious hijinks than he thought possible. When the power of unlimited imagination falls into the wrong hands, it will take all of Harold and his friends’ creativity to save both the real world and his own. Harold and the Purple Crayon is the first film adaptation of the beloved children’s classic that has captivated young readers for decades,” says the synopsis.

Zooey, you’re playing the straight woman to just the most unbelievable things happening to you. Everybody’s so outrageous and over the top. So how is it really just playing it straight when everything else is going off the rails?

Zooey Deschanel: Someone’s always gotta. There always has to be that person that’s like the satellite for the audience. It’s very important to comedy, I think. You can’t have everybody off the walls, especially if there’s all this stuff going on. You have to have that person that’s like, “What?” Because the audience is doing that.

So like, that’s really important. One thing I liked about New Girl [was] in that cast, everyone could play the straight man or the comedic kind of crazy character. So I always rejoiced in getting to switch back and forth between those different roles.

In this movie, I play the kind of straight man character, and [Lil Rel] is playing a moose, who is in the real world, but thinking moose thoughts. Harold is a little boy, and Tanya is a porcupine. So, it’s very important that I be me, and then I think Ben’s character sees everything with like awe and wonder, and I see things through a skeptical lens and kind of have to be pulled into the world of creativity and imagination. I think we all represent parts of the audience that they want to see in this story. So I thought it was really fun to get to do that, and I get to just like watch my co-stars do hilarious things. So it was great for me.

Lil Rel, what were your character inspirations for the Moose? He’s very anxious. Did you base it off any real moose you saw?

Lil Rel Howery: Look, I watched a bunch of videos because I just wanted to see the kind of swag of a moose, and moose are really pretty chill. So, you saw Moose panicking when stuff heightened up, but for the most part, he was just like, “Hey, man. It is what it is.” You know what I mean? Which is why my favorite scene for Moose to show his moose-ness is when he saw a moose on a screen and just put the headphones on and just sat there while all the chaos is happening. He’s just chilling because that’s what moose really wanna do. Moose wants to chill. Moose don’t want no trouble. He wants some grass. Wanna mind his business.

Zooey, Benjamin Botney plays your son in the film. Uh, can you speak to working with him because, uh, like you said, he is really seeing things through eyes of Wonderman and uh, he he’s just really fun in this movie.

Deschanel: Yeah, he was so great in the movie and we’ve been saying all day like he was the most professional one of us. He was such a pro. He is so sweet and a great young actor to work with. I think he’s got a great future.

Howery: So funny. So, so funny. Great timing.

Lil Rel, this is a pretty unique role because it does have that animated start. So you get to do voice acting, and then you get to portray the same character in live-action as well. How was it getting to blend those arts and show your full arsenal here?

Howery: It was fun. I guess it wasn’t that tough. It was so funny. It was just more or less like those little things. Like, for instance, when I get scared, Moose turns back into a moose. So, we’re in the airplane, then the feet come down. I had to figure out how scared I should play it to show that he needs to turn back into Moose. So sometimes I had to dial back a little bit of how afraid he was, but I had to figure out what was the tipping point for him to be so scared he turns back into the moose. So it was weird trying to figure out that balance, but it was fun, though.

Deschanel: That’s an interesting point. I hadn’t thought about that. You have to figure out how would Moose do this.

Howery: I had to make sure. Sometimes I couldn’t do it too much. Those levels were like the biggest challenge of playing Moose.

Zooey, I’m a big Flight of the Concords fan, so it’s very fun to see Jemaine Clement play the villain here. You have some really fun scenes. He’s obsessed with your character. How is it working with Jemaine?

Deschanel: Oh my god, he is amazing. He’s so funny and he is a great improviser. Like he was just saying stuff that was cracking me up. He’s so funny. He’s very chill. He was just chill and fun to work with. Recommend a hundred percent.

Howery: Oh, man. I wish we had like a blooper reel, man. Yeah, he’s so funny. It was a lot of funny, especially in that library. I think that was one of the first days I worked with him, so we was just laughing about random stuff the whole time.

Deschanel: I had this scene with him in the woods where we’re like in his fantasy world that made me laugh so hard.

ComingSoon thanks Zooey Deschanel and Lil Rel Howery for taking the time to discuss Harold and the Purple Crayon.