Chris Renaud from Despicable Me says: “Almost the entire team is French”

© Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection

It’s not just Maxime Le Mal, the villain with the strong accent from Despicable Me 4, who has a distinctly French touch.

In fact, French DNA can be found in all of the successful films in Universal and Illumination’s animation franchise. And although Chris Renaud, the Oscar-nominated director of the latest Despicable Me and two of its predecessors, owes his French-sounding name to his Canadian roots, the director says that “basically everyone” working on the films is French. The only exceptions to this geographic overrepresentation are the writers (Mike White and Ken Daurio) and some of the storyboard artists, who are based in the US.

“Everything from the so-called layout to the animation to the lighting and compositing – almost the entire team is French! The image you see is assembled and created here in France,” says Renaud, who moved to Paris in 2010 to work on the first Despicable Me production under the direction of Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri. Since then, he has lived in the “City of Light” with his family.

Even Pharrell Williams, who wrote the original song “Double Life” for Despicable Me 4, now lives in France, Renaud notes. That’s because Williams, who also wrote the anthem “Happy” for the second film in the series, is the artistic designer for French fashion giant Louis Vuitton.

Along with the French animation team at Paris-based studio Illumination Mac Guff, Pierre Coffin is one of the masterminds behind the popular franchise. He created the lovable supervillain Gru as the protagonist with Renaud and also co-directed the first three Despicable Me films. In addition to all this work, Coffin voices the wacky gibberish of the Minions, the bright yellow creatures who work alongside Gru.

Renaud, who co-directed the fourth film with Patrick Delage, says the French influence was there from the start. Long before Maxime Le Mal arrived on the scene, Gru himself had almost a French accent.

“One of our first influences for the character Gru was actually Peter Sellers as Inspector Cluzot, who of course imitates a funny French accent, and that was a funny character idea,” says Renaud.

He says the team initially had “more of a generic villain in mind, someone big, strong and very intimidating to get Gru and the family to leave home,” but they dropped that as it seemed “a little too scary” and eventually came up with the idea of ​​a “high school rivalry.”

“We thought about different versions of high school archetypes, like the class clown, reminiscent of the Joker, or the high school jock, who could have been more physically intimidating. Then we came up with Maxime La Mal,” says Renaud.

When it comes to creating supervillains hell-bent on world domination, Renaud says the temptation was to go “the Marvel route.” But Illumination “quickly realized that we couldn’t beat Marvel at being Marvel, and that’s not what our world is about anyway.”

Renaud says the pettiness of Gru and Maxime Le Mal’s rivalry is just human nature. “The reason for the dislike is a very small insult. I think it’s a very ‘Despicable Me’ idea, where you have these big villains but they’re caught up in the pettiness of real life.”

The director points out that the influences for “Gru” and “Maxime Le Mal” come from the works of Jacques Tati, the famous French mime turned director who was, among other things, a master of physical comedy.

Renaud, who voiced Principal Uebelschlecht in Despicable Me 4, says he likes working with comedians who can create larger-than-life characters. “A lot of (the humor) in Despicable Me comes from the performance that Steve Carell created as Gru.”

Maxime Le Mal’s strange French accent and wacky demeanor are also the product of the imagination and performance of former “SNL” star Will Ferrell. “When Will came on, we tried a few different things in case he said, ‘Oh, I’m not so good at French, or let me think of something else.’ But he came in and was there right away. He was really well prepared and had this great idea for the voice,” says Renaud.

Ferrell also made Maxime Le Mal “a little manic.” “When he’s angry, he acts like a little kid. At first he seems arrogant, but what I like is that you peel away those layers. You see that he’s very vulnerable and childlike and has been hurt by his experiences with Gru when they were kids,” says Renaud.

Recent works with French antagonists, such as “Emily in Paris,” have been criticized for French-bashing, but Renaud says he is not afraid of criticism of Maxime Le Mal, who not only tortures Gru but also turns him into a cockroach.

“I don’t think we rely on any stereotypes, apart from the French accent,” says Renaud, adding: “The team, which is entirely French, would have spoken out if something had upset or bothered them… Of course, we would have seriously thought about it and removed it, considering that it was made by French craftsmen.”

Although he admits he hasn’t seen much of “Emily in Paris,” he says the show “actually aims for the cliche. Which isn’t really what we’re doing,” he says.

Renaud says that traveling to France to shoot Despicable Me allowed the production to tap into the huge talent pool, many of whom have graduated from the country’s top animation schools like Les Gobelins, and deliver studio-level films with competitive budgets. Despicable Me 4, for example, has a budget of $100 million, about half of what many Disney and Pixar films cost, and has already grossed around $120 million during the five-day holiday period.

Another reason for his move to France was the “tough competition for talent in the US” in 2008. “It would have been difficult to set up a studio,” he says, adding that because they were in France and not the US, “there was no preconceived idea of ​​what a studio should be.”

“We were able to create something new and a new way of thinking. You’ll find that a lot of other people have copied that in (places like) Vancouver and Montreal,” he says.

There could be at least one more sequel to Despicable Me, possibly with a return of Maxime Le Mal, promises Renaud. “If we come up with a good story and feel that we can break new ground with it, then that’s certainly possible.”

“Despicable Me 4” will be released in cinemas in France on July 10th.