Sitcom icons Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Chris O'Dowd discuss their earliest film memories – and voicing The Sheep Detectives

There are a lot of massively star-studded films set to appear in cinemas later this year – including The Odyssey and Dune Part Three – but perhaps one of the most surprisingly starry releases is new family movie The Sheep Detectives.

The farmyard whodunnit – which we described as "fun for the whole flock" in our three star review – features the likes of Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart and Bryan Cranston among its cast, some as human characters and others as the voices of the titular wooly sleuths.

Two of the most prominent cast members are sitcom icons Julia Louis-Dreyfus (of Seinfeld and Veep fame) and Chris O'Dowd (The IT Crowd), with that duo voicing two of the most determined ovine detectives.

To mark the release, Radio Times spoke to the pair for our Film Flashbacks series – discussing everything from their very first film memories to their favourite aspects of voiceover work.

You can check out the full interview below.

What are your earliest memories of going to the cinema and watching films when you were younger?

Chris O' Dowd: I didn't have a big cinema going experience as a child, because we didn't have a cinema for much of my childhood... because it burned down! But I do remember going to the early Jurassic Park movies as a teen, and it being like, 'Oh God, that is a huge... that's a big dinosaur.' And it was much bigger on the bigger screen. And so I liked the epic quality of that.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus: I spent my early youth in New York City and my parents took me to see Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. And I went a lot. You know, you'd go multiple times because I couldn't not watch it. And I remember watching Funny Girl, that was a great one too. Back when they were making musicals all the time!

Julia, you came up on Saturday Night Live. What was it like going from that to appearing in TV shows and films that maybe had a little bit less chaos around them than SNL?

JL-D: Oh yeah, that was a little bit of a transition, actually. Because doing live television is quite different than shooting a film. And understanding your relationship to the camera, what the camera is capturing in a way that is not the case in a three camera or four camera live experience.

So you know, kind of turning it down, dialling it down a little bit in terms of performance and sort of understanding the tone. It's obviously very much a director's medium, film, and fully understanding what a director is trying to capture is just a different thing altogether. Incredibly enjoyable, but it's quite different.

Speaking of directors, Chris – from quite early on in your career you were working with directors like Mike Leigh [in Vera Drake]. What are your memories of your earliest times on a film set?

CO'D: Spoilt. I mean, I was kind of spoilt early on working with people kind of like Mike Leigh and Christopher Guest. And you kind of think that everybody's going to be that creatively explorative moving forward and of course they're not!

But it was wonderful to kind of put you in that place that makes you feel like that should be the default. I had a small enough role in Vera Drake, and it was still a three month process to establish what the character was going to be like, because he has that there's no scripts or anything. And it does make you, I suppose, become a writer quicker than you would otherwise.

Then I suppose it was working with a lot of theatre directors, and just like Julia, it's like, 'Oh my God, I need to dial everything down. I'm doing everything like it's a play. I'm hitting the back row!'

And the sitcom thing is interesting. Because we've both done a bit of that, and it's hard to know where to place it, because you do want to hit the audience, but the cameras are seeing other stuff altogether. And so then it took me a little while of watching that and going, 'Why am I shouting at everybody?'

And I was just reminded, weirdly, I did a sitcom, and the first week of it, we watched Seinfeld.

JL-D: Oh, you did?

CO'D: Like for the first... I would say, at least three or four days for four or five hours, because the creator was obsessed with it, and he loved the dynamic. And it was a very different type of a show, but it was still kind of similar kind of people. So it was...

JL-D: No s**t?

CO'D: Yeah. Which is really interesting and incredible.

You've both had these experiences of being in really popular sitcoms that continue to have enduring appeal. How do you think being in something like that affects the kind of roles that you look for and the kind of roles you're offered?

JL-D: Well, I would say any work you do... I mean it's sort of on you as a performer as an actor, to try to sort of get yourself out of any box that you've been placed in by the industry. And sometimes that can be hard.

But you know, if you're curious and really ambitious to try other things, you must sort of pursue exactly that. Whether or not you succeed, you know, who knows? But you've got to keep trying new material and I think you can get boxed into sort of an idea of, like... well, even just comedy.

But I've often felt that people who can do comedy are very skilled at doing drama, because there's kind of an ear for authenticity that's in place.

In this film, you're both voice acting, which you've both done plenty of before in your careers. What do you find appealing about the opportunity to voice a character in a film like this?

CO'D: I like just going into work and nobody really cares what you're wearing! And you're just putting all of your efforts, I suppose, into this one thing that you do.

You are essentially even more of a triangle player in the orchestra, and there's something a bit freeing about that... I am going to go nuts on this triangle.

So I think that's it. I just get to worry about this one thing, and it's just: how do I get this character across through the use of a voice? It's quite freeing.

JL-D: I love being able to not get into hair and makeup to go do voice work. You may be surprised to hear this, but this takes hours and hours to get this in place!

CO'D: It's worth it.

JL-D: Thank you, that's very kind of you to say, I've been here since three o'clock in the morning! I'm kidding, but anyway...

Certainly the challenge is to make your voice project everything. Your voice takes over the role of your body and everything else. But it is interesting, too. I found that when you're just recording your voice, if you're physical at the same time, it does change the quality of the voice.

I mean, you really discover a lot of nuances that you wouldn't perhaps be aware of if you were on camera using your whole body and so on. As you zero in on just your voice, a lot can be revealed.

CO'D: And also it hides the fact that you could do stuff with your voice. Like, let's say when you're in the booth, in a very practical sense, to get your voice to a place... you can kind of throw yourself around a lot that you wouldn't do on camera because it would look manic. So you're getting to do a lot of the work underwater.

The Sheep Detectives is now showing in UK cinemas.

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