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A 'Little Spirit' of 'Christmas in New York' with Danny DeVito and Leopoldo Gout
by Troy Rogers
Now that the Christmas season is upon us, NBC is setting the holiday tone early with the new special Little Spirit: Christmas in New York, which airs Wednesday, December 10 at 8pm. Combining the look and style of traditional holiday paintings with today's cutting edge 3D animation to create a marriage of classical and modern stylings, Little Spirit: Christmas in New York is a dazzling new visual treat for the holidays. Starring Danny Devito, Lucy Liu, Freddy Rodriguez, Brian Williams and Brenda Song, Little Spirit: Christmas in New York follows the magical journey of a young boy new to Manhattan who loses his dog in Central Park but is soon joined by a magical creature who helps him search for his pet while he meets people from all walks of life during the festive season.
As Little Spirit: Christmas in New York gets set to air on December 10, we found ourselves on our own magical journey through the phone lines to chat with actor Danny Devito, who plays the special's storytelling cabbie, and writer/director Leopoldo Gout, to find out more about the holiday special, it's unique visual Christmas style, why Danny Devito does so many Christmas movies, and whether playing a cab driver brought back memories of the hit '70s series Taxi and his character Louie DePalma.
THE DEADBOLT: Since you’re playing a New York cab driver, did you tap into your days as Louie DePalma?
 DANNY DEVITO: Well, you know Louie was a [dispatcher] - I figure he did drive a cab. I mean, there were memories of cab - I can’t remember the title of the show, 804 or something like that - and I did drive a cab. I never did personally, really, but the thing that Leopoldo did, which was great, was I think they captured the whole feeling of what it would be like to be a cab driver in maddening traffic, especially in New York city. If you’re driving around and think it’s [easy] - park out of the city and take a bus in or a train, don’t bring your car. It’s a little tiny city, actually, New York. Yeah, I think the artists and Leopoldo directing the whole operation well represented the New York cab driver.
LEOPOLDO GOUT: Yeah, we definitely wanted to nod on the classic New Yorker. I know you’re from New Jersey, but people kind of took you into the city.
THE DEADBOLT: Danny, you mentioned that you don’t know what to get Rhea every year, but what do you want for yourself this Christmas?
DEVITO: You know, we try to keep it small, keep it under control in terms of that kind of stuff. And I’ve graduated to the socks, underwear, and bathrobe generation. I usually replenish my wardrobe of black pants and black T-shirts. I wear dark clothes because my mother always said it was slimming. I’ve been on a diet since I was ten [laughs]. By the way, Leopoldo, I think you guys did a really great job in the drawing of my character.
GOUT: Yeah, we really enjoyed developing him a lot.
DEVITO: I look really fit in the movie. That’s good, I like that.
GOUT: Well, your character goes to the gym a lot.
THE DEADBOLT: Leopoldo, the visuals look fantastic. How long did it take to get this project together from start to finish?
GOUT: At least two and a half years, from the very early times when I spoke with my partner, Susan Holden, who’s my co-director on the piece, and I showed her my creations and my stuff. And we had the luxury of taking our time developing the characters and creating mythologies around the little spirit. I wrote back stories to the character of Little Spirit and he’s connected to the power of Manhattan. It’s an island that’s been a very international island for many years. And even before the Mayflower this island had various Native American tribes that co-existed here and spoke different languages. We truly had fun developing these characters and bringing it alive. And we based, obviously, the lead character of Danny Devito in Danny and we took our time with Leo and my son and with Ramona, which is actually my real dog, a Boston terrier. So we really took the time of development and I feel that kids of all ages will really feel that and see it, too.
THE DEADBOLT: Danny, I’ve noticed that you do a holiday movie about once every two years. What is it about these types of movies that keeps you coming back?
 DEVITO: Oh, you know, it’s a warm, good feeling that you have a project that you feel is worth doing. In this case with The Little Spirit, I mean it’s a great project for young people to see and families can watch it together. Leopoldo is a passionate director. And even though you may say, ‘Well, with my time I think I should do this, that, or the other thing,’ if Leopoldo is very passionate about something, he’s going to figure out a way to make it work and that’s a very encouraging thing for somebody to be that passionate about a film. I like doing them. I like Christmas. I like that time of year. It’s a great thing and if you can have a film or TV with wonderful animation like The Little Spirit out there for people to see, it’s a part of the whole tradition of feeling a kind of comradery.
THE DEADBOLT: Do you have a preference between voice work or live action?
DEVITO: No, it doesn’t matter. I think I had a great time doing the Christmas movies where I physically appeared in them and this was a lot of fun. This one was lots of fun to see how Leopoldo and Susan and Curious Pictures, and all of the artists over there did such a great job, how they would come up with the backgrounds, everything, and put you in there. It’s just so well done. It’s great to be part of that. Doing the voice is like doing the - It’s similar, in fact on a couple of things I did, it’s a lot fun of doing it. This was a gas.
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