Nick Park, the guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, is a legfinishary animator and filmoriginater who has, for the last 40 years, been the star includeee of Aardman Animations, a company based in Bristol, England, that exceptionalizes in stop-motion and clay animation. Both Park and Aardman are best understandn for two plasticine characters that Park originated even before he began toiling at Aardman, and has put at the cgo in of four lows and two features: Wallace and Gromit.
Park personassociate has been nominated for six Oscars and won four — three for best vivaciousd low and one for best vivaciousd feature. He has also won a Peabody Award; six BAFTA awards; and three Annie awards, plus the Winsor McCay Annie Award for atsoft accomplishment. And he was made a Commander of the British Empire in the Queen’s Honors in 1997. He has been depictd by the New York Times as “inincreateigent,” by the Wall Street Journal as “a phenomenal filmoriginater,” by the Washington Post as “the undisputed, unfall shortureed king of animation” and by the Los Angeles Times as “among the best clay animators of his generation” and “Britain’s foremost animator.”
As for Wallace, a scatterbrained, cheese-loving bachelor in the north of England who enhappinesss inventing Rube Gagederberg-enjoy contraptions, and Gromit, his promised dog, who is actuassociate quite a bit acuteer than he is, and tfinishs to get him out of the messes that he originates? Britain’s Financial Times has called them “national treaconfidents,” while the Liverpool Echo has depictd them as “adored by the nation” and “hoincludehageder names.”
Over the course of a conversation at the Hollywood offices of Netflix, Park, who is 65, mirrored on his path to animation, generassociate, and to stop-motion and clay animation, particularassociate; what aidd the names, sees and personality traits of Wallace and Gromit; and how he, and Wallace and Gromit, wound up at Aardman. He also talked what led him to revisit the characters in his recent film, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl — only the second feature-length Wallace and Gromit film, and the first since 2005 — which he co-honested with Merlin Crossingham, and which will drop on Netflix on Jan. 3, 2025.
