In this witty, new breed of mystery, Hugh Jackman stars as a shepherd who reads detective novels to his beloved sheep every night, assuming they can’t possibly understand. But when a mysterious incident disrupts life on the farm, the sheep realize they must become the detectives. As they follow the clues and investigate human suspects, they prove that even sheep can be brilliant crime-solvers.
Based on the novel “Three Bags Full” by Leonie Swann, The Sheep Detectives cast is full of all-stars including Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Emma Thompson, Bryan Cranston, Patrick Stewart, Nicholas Braun and Molly Gordon. We caught up with Gordon to learn more about being a suspect, working with sheep (or pretending to!), and the many layers to this family murder-mystery.
Interview for Family Entourage
Family Entourage: Our family loves a good whodunnit and a mystery. So it was just really fun for us to all get to go to the theater together. Molly, your character was a suspect from the start. How was it like becoming Rebecca?
Molly Gordon: It was really fun. I liked playing the person that people suspected, but I wasn’t allowed to give away anything. So it was a little tough for me because I’m not good at keeping a secret. So it was a challenge, but I really enjoyed it.
FE: How much of the script did you know? Did they let you know who did it at the end or were you kind of getting layers peeled back as well?
MG: I knew what it was. I hope that audiences are surprised because I think that’s the dream. You don’t want to give anything away. But no, they let us read the whole thing. But I don’t know. Sometimes I like to … I think we all acted it sometimes like we were the murderer just for the fun of it.
FE: I couldn’t believe that the sheep and the film weren’t really real. How was it like acting with nothing really there?
MG: That’s such a good question. It was really hard. I was doing it like this. So it was very … Sometimes you felt a little bit crazy, but you had to really use your imagination. It actually reminded me of being a little girl. And when I used to play doll, I used to play make believe with my friends, and that’s what it really felt like. And then when I was watching the movie, I couldn’t believe that they had made it into actual … The way that they made the sheep look, they look real to me. So I couldn’t believe it. But no, sometimes I felt a little bit silly. And I thought, oh, if my friends could see this, they would make fun of me going like this on a mountain by myself. Yeah.
FE: Did you get any interaction? Did they get you familiarized with the lambs or sheep?
MG: At the camera test, there was one little lamb. It’s a wonderful experience. They’re very, very, very cute. But I was immediately so excited and then I never saw them again. But I loved them. And I love the winter lamb in the movie. The baby lamb is my favorite character in the movie.
FE: That was my favorite character too.
MG: Really? Yeah. And it made me want to have a little lamb. So maybe if I … That’s my dream one day to have one.
FE: There is something for everyone with many different layers to this film. First of all, the cast is fantastic. It was so fun to kind of see all the different faces popping up and hear some of our favorites as well. But there’s so many layers to sheep, right? The simplicity, the innocence. I even loved the faith parallel as they were walking through the kind of graveyard there and having their own depictions of it. But maybe talk to me just about how deep the film is kind of for this fun lighthearted concept.
MG: Totally. I mean, I’m not a parent, so I can’t speak to this, but I feel like as a parent, you have to talk about some hard things sometimes and explain it in a way that isn’t scary, in a way that feels like this is life and this is what happens. And I think that it’s so cool that a kid’s movie could explore these topics and it feel like, oh yeah, this is what we all go through and we all kind of question all these things. I don’t know. I thought it was so special. And I feel like if I had watched that when I was a kid, I would’ve wanted to talk to my mom about it and ask her questions in a really way that wouldn’t be scary and in a way that felt kind of easy to digest because it felt fantastical still. Not scary, but grounded.
The Sheep Detectives hits theatres May 8
