Production Information - Visual Hollywood

―How to Train Your Dragon‖ Production Information 8general. He just feels like a character who has toughened himself up and developed asense of comedy as a means of defense. I love that about Jay.‖Slight and funny may work for comedy, but it certainly does not work for the sonof someone named ―Stoick the Vast.‖ Per Baruchel: ―Hiccup‘s dad is warlord of theVikings. And he‘s just a tough son-of-a-gun—each of Stoick‘s arms is about the size oftwo Hiccups put together. I think that it‘s not too dissimilar from my father in real life—all he wanted was for me to play hockey, or maybe baseball, and neither of those wasever going to happen.‖So, if the slight Baruchel is voicing Hiccup, it makes perfect sense that animposing actor, one that could believably sound like a Nordic commander-in-chief,would voice Stoick. How about the former King of Sparta?Arnold says, ―Gerry Butler became more well-known with his role in ‗300,‘ andwe looked at that film and thought, ‗Oh, my gosh, that is our Stoick.‘ He‘s got this greatbig booming voice that has to fill this giant of a man. We invited Gerry in to meet andshow him what we had on the movie, and he was very interested and excited.‖And Butler came loaded with great work experience: ―I‘m very fortunate in thatI‘ve played a Viking before, and I‘ve played a lot of these kinds of characters—I playedAttila the Hun, I‘ve done a movie set in the medieval period, so I‘ve also used swordsand shields and spears. As well as playing Leonidas [in ‗300‘], I‘ve actually made amovie in Iceland—I was there for three months playing Beowulf, maybe the most famousViking story of all time, who was also pitted against a monster like we have in thismovie. So, I feel like half of my career has led me to playing a role like this—being aleader, being powerful, being noble, but fighting a cause I‘m not sure about, having somefear about something, but still fighting it anyway.‖―I think the most important conversation we had with any of the actors was aconference call we had with Gerard Butler a few days before we recorded him,‖ recallsDeBlois. ―We talked with him a lot about Stoick, as he represents all things Viking.Gerard didn‘t want this character to come off being mean or villainous, and we really gota chance to discuss this guy‘s role in the film, and what his relationship to Hiccup is.‖That initial phone call with Butler provided the directors with additional insightsinto the character of Stoick and was a turning point in the development of the film. ―We