On February 7th, Disney+ subscribers will see Stephen Pastis’ popular book series come to life with an exclusive film, Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made. The cast recently got together for big screen premieres at the Sundance Film Festival and at Disney’s El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood to see the film and share in each other’s success. While they were gathered, I got the chance to meet with them at the Walt Disney Studios to learn more about the making of this brand-new Disney+ film.
Winslow Fegley stars as Timmy Failure, a character he identifies with. “I’m a little different from Timmy but I definitely have some similarities. He doesn’t always think through things twice, he kind of acts spontaneously, which I think sometimes I do as well. And he sometimes does things before he’s finished another thing. If you look through my sketchbook, I’ll have eighty half-drawn drawings because I always jump into the next thing before finishing. Which may not be the best thing, but I’m eleven-years-old and I’m working on it.”
The film is set in Portland, OR, a city that lent itself well to the themes of the story. “I think it’s the Portland mystique,” Winslow shared while talking about the story. “There’s definitely some crazy Portland vibes in this film.” Kyle Bornheimer plays Crispin, Timmy’s mom’s new boyfriend, who felt similarly about the film’s setting. “One of the things about Portland and one of the reasons that [Director] Tom [McCarthy] wanted to set it in Portland is that it’s a city that celebrates its uniqueness and celebrates its weirdness and one of the themes, ‘Only normal people are normal.’ And the city and the story and the characters all reflect that and all really celebrate weirdness and uniqueness.
Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made at times almost feels like a love letter to Portland. “It didn’t really start to hit me until we were shooting,” Kyle added about the production. “I was seeing the way [Tom McCarthy] was casting it and I was seeing the way, even just the way they designed the house. He perfectly carried that through in executing the film in the edit.”
One of the weirdest, or most Portland, elements of the film is Timmy’s polar bear colleague Total, who may or may not be imaginary. At the very least, the majority of the stars can’t see him, but there was an actor named Michael Adamthwaite on set in a polar bear suit every day standing in for Total. “He’s an expert,” Kyle shared about working with Michael. “One of ten or twelve people in the world that do it. I think he worked on Planet of the Apes and he’s excellent at it. As much a part of the project as anyone.”
Veteran actor Wallace Shawn was impressed with the performance. “The guy in the suit was pretty convincing as it was. It seemed quite real, but then seeing the polar bear last night was mind boggling.” Another surprise on the shoot was the professionalism of the child actors. “I’m a little afraid of kids,” Wallace joked, “but in the setting of a movie they sort of put aside the kid act and act like the grown ups that they really are. And certainly I did a lot of scenes just with Winslow, who played Timmy, and we were treated the same by the director. He was treated like an adult and he acted like an adult and there was a kind of assumed equality between him and me that was very agreeable.”
Ophelia Lovibond plays Patty Failure, Timmy’s single mother and she echoed Wallace’s sentiments about working with the young cast. “It’s strange. You hear ‘Action’ and as an actor you’re just so well behaved. Straight out the block, it was no different in that sense. But there was no cynicism, which lends itself to the tone of the film I think. These kids are just having a lot of fun on set so that just happily bleeds into the feel of the rest of the set.
Speaking of the fun on set, I asked the four child actors to share their most fun moment on set and they couldn’t pick just one. “I had some very fun moments,” Winslow started. “Definitely in the school we had some really fun scenes.” Ai-Chan Carrier plays Timmy’s nemesis, Corrina Corrina. “My favorite was probably the day we had the bank and then we all got cups of candy and then we scooped it and we put it in our bag on our chairs and we were playing the [Nintendo] Switch.” Kei plays Timmy’s best friend Rollo and he also liked the bank scene, but for a different reason. ”I run into a door. I did my own stunts for the first two takes and they were like Kei, you need to stop running into the door because we don’t want you getting hurt.” For Chloe Coleman, who plays Molly Moskin, one of the film’s final scenes was her favorite. “Near the end of the movie, the parade scene, the big parade. The stands were actually working.” The kids joked about the treats they were able to get from the food stands along the parade route.
Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made could’ve been made at any studio, but it’s being made at Disney. “Disney, it’s creative, it’s imagining, it’s magical,” Chloe Coleman shared about being in a Disney film. “Especially this movie because it teaches you that being yourself and not being like everyone else is not weird. It’s who you are, so if you want to be normal then be normal but being yourself is going to lead you on a great path in life that’s going to lead you to a happy person.” Ai-Chan Carrier added why the pairing of Disney and Timmy Failure is so special. “And I think like Timmy, he’s very strong in his imagination and I think a lot of people are that way. Walt Disney, for example, his imagination made Disneyland, Disney World, all of it, that’s why we’re in a Disney movie.”
Wallace Shawn is no stranger to Disney, having worked on many live-action and animated films including A Goofy Movie, My Favorite Martian, Noah, Teacher’s Pet, The Haunted Mansion, The Incredibles, Chicken Little, Air Buddies, and Rex in the Toy Story series. “I wanted to work for Walt Disney when I was that age and a little bit younger. I wanted to be a cartoonist and I used to… Walt Disney used to have a TV show that sort of took you behind the scenes of what they do and I was into it. Then twenty or thirty years went by when I was thinking of other things. Then I found my way back into these buildings and ended up working for Walt. I mean this, and Toy Story, and other things that I…. I ended up living off his… you know, paychecks.”
You can see Wallace Shawn receive his most recent paycheck from The Walt Disney Company and see the city of Portland come alive like never before in Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made exclusively on Disney+ starting February 7th.