{"id":616271,"date":"2026-09-06T12:44:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T12:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/616271\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T12:44:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T12:44:18","slug":"lucy-liu-talks-moonfish-indie-animation-and-venice-premiere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/616271\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucy Liu Talks ‘Moonfish,’ Indie Animation and Venice Premiere"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFor Lucy Liu, who has voiced memorable characters in everything from \u201cKung Fu Panda\u201d to \u201cStrange World,\u201d being part of the independently made, black-and-white animated film \u201cMoonfish<\/a>\u201d was all about lending her name and support to first-time filmmaker Daniel Zvereff.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThese are the people that are not just the creatives, but the ones who are going to be the future,\u201d Liu tells Variety. \u201cI\u2019m just fascinated by how people work and how things start when there\u2019s not all this red tape.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPremiering at the Venice Film Festival<\/a> on Sept. 6 after receiving a grant from Biennale College Cinema, \u201cMoonfish\u201d follows a pair of astronauts, voiced by Liu and \u201cThe Gilded Age\u201d star Morgan Spector, as they embark on an isolating mission to the moon with a corporate quota to meet if they want to return home.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI really wanted to have the film take place in an environment that was an allegory to our current human condition we\u2019re all experiencing right now, where society is very plugged in, but simultaneously we\u2019re all growing a bit disconnected,\u201d Zvereff says.<\/p>\n

\n\tZvereff designed the 2D-animated film so that he could finish it completely on his own, if need be. Thankfully, as Zvereff worked over the course of nine months, he managed to bring on two animators, Hoss Wheeler and Devin Grover.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I watch 2D-animated films, I feel like I\u2019m being exposed to the subconscious of that artist,\u201d Zvereff says of his approach.<\/p>\n

\n\tLiu adds, \u201cIt\u2019s amazing what digital has done for the speed of animation but you can really feel the appreciation and the craftsmanship [here]. There is a tenderness and an imperfection that I appreciate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUnlike Liu, Spector had never done an animated film before \u201cMoonfish.\u201d The trickiest part was getting into his character\u2019s mental headspace as he goes \u201ca little mad,\u201d as Spector puts it.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis particular class of people has come to live on the moon, and they\u2019ve evolved, essentially, as moon people. But they\u2019ve also evolved as an underclass; they are the group of people without rights, assets or any real hope for the future,\u201d Spector says of Zvereff\u2019s worldbuilding.<\/p>\n

\n\tLiu, of course, also voices the talking fish that accompanies the pair (which Zvereff likens to how miners brought along canaries to know when they had to leave) amidst the mundanity of the corporate tasks at hand.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe future that Daniel\u2019s imagining is one in which the relationship between human beings and their tools has been totally inverted. The corporation has merged with the computer in a sort of perfect authoritarian machine that uses human beings as fodder, basically,\u201d Spector says. \u201cIt\u2019s a vision of the world that feels continuous with the one we live in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the film explores isolation and loneliness in space, with the dialogue sparse and to-the-point, Zvereff realized during the writing process that it needed to ultimately be positive about the future of humanity.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s something that happens as an artist. When you\u2019re making something, you\u2019re taking in all these feelings you\u2019re happening and running them through this prism,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd out comes this beautiful, unexpected light.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Lucy Liu, who has voiced memorable characters in everything from \u201cKung Fu Panda\u201d to \u201cStrange World,\u201d being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,261512,270,802],"class_list":["post-616271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-moonfish","tag-movies","tag-venice-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}