Making Of How To Train Your Dragon 2025 Behind The Scenes Special Official Video

I would say live-action is full of surprises whereas animation everything's you're planning it and you're executing it in in kind of a glacial pace over the course of many years but very very infrequently do you get a chance to improvise and to have spontaneity in the room except for when you're with actors. That's true of animation but when you're in live-action it's it's all about that it's about the happy surprises that are just present every day because you have actors that are coming to you with ideas you have it changes the way the scene plays out physically it changes the spaces between dialogue and how how moments are processed and whether dialogue is even necessary the whole thing becomes a conversation and it's it's flowing and it's really it's really fascinating and interesting. I loved being part of it because you have a sense of time is wasting and you have to get you have to get a certain number of shots done a day but otherwise the set just won't be there you know but at the same time there's magic happening around you you know and someone might have a really great idea about what to do with a camera and then the actors might have a really great idea about how to play something differently than the way it was scripted and and your job as director is just sort of to be responsive you know to take it all in but also have a sense of what the story is about and what's important and keep driving it forward no more good tricks i'm taking tops today okay that's that's fine top top slide away he wants to be a viking he wants to fit in but that's just it's just not who he is i related to hiccups so can a lot of other people i related to him so much you know being different and just accepting it and you know that's what makes you cool he wants to make his father proud and you know that that's what he wants so bad but he just can't seem to you know can't seem to do it and just kind of lets everybody down so that's one of the things we explored a lot was you know how would somebody cope with that and hiccups responses you know humor you know throw a joke at it you know make fun of himself it's you know you know what hiccup does it's who he is so getting to do that was was a lot of fun stoic just sees that he's not the kid that stoic wants him to be he's not following in this line of great warriors following the forefathers protecting the traditions being respected revered by the rest of the tribe he's just not that kid well he uh he is this this towering physically imposing figure with such a commanding presence and and he's smart he has a sharp wit and he's quick to temper um but more than anything he is about with all that wildness he is a man who is about the book about upholding the traditions and the values and the customs of the tribe he fiercely protects them and their way of life uh and that's hugely important to him he also has a son who is such a deep-seated love for his son and that kind of tears him apart because his son is not really who he wanted him to be okay i'm the first viking and who knows how long who wouldn't kill a dragon what i think is brilliant about ashton is that she sees a difference in him and an individuality that is really key and special and potentially could be kind of life-changing for all of them and instead of resenting it and kind of chastising him for it because she lacks that i think what's amazing is that she kind of encourages him to step all the way into it and then when he does it's so beautiful and lovely and sweet and i think that it's something that makes their relationship really special is that encouragement and that she is also kind of responsible for how much he takes ownership over what he does and how special he is the moment we've all been waiting for i just gotta pick a spot for my statue it's so much bigger from down here i remember seeing my costume being like this is my favorite all of the designers were like yep this is our favorite um we have a little joke that maybe fish legs is it's like the wealthy one in burke you know he has a little bit more money he can kind of splash out on his sheep furs and his kind of leather so yeah i love it and then i thought i had the best costume and then i saw all the adults like peter and gerard and all of them and i was like oh no i'm not tough nut is um one of the recruits so he's one of the the teens going through the trial of flame so wanting to become like kind of the top slayer he's a twin um his twin is roughnut and they basically think they're identical even though they're clearly not um but he's also done the trial of flame a couple of times i think that i think we said something like this is his fourth time doing it so he's basically like that kid in school that's doing his like last grade like over and over and over again um so he's completely thinks he's like i've basically got this i know what i'm doing he is motivated by ego and motivated by like wanting to prove himself and i think especially because he's constantly battling with his twin he's just like i just need to be one thing from her so it's this constant competitiveness between them he's a bit of a lug um but i love him very much roughnut is the twin sister of toughnut and they are these feral kind of gremlin twins uh especially roughnut i've really tried to lean into the feralness of her uh so they have this massive unearned sense of bravado and it is all just bravado it's all this um so they've got like out of 10 of confidence i've got a 10 skill level probably a two they fight constantly they're constantly trying to one-up each other trying to be the best one uh trying to show the other one up but beneath it all they really love each other they will risk their lives for each other and for the people that are important to them it's that very sibling relationship of like no one makes fun of my brother but me um so that's been really fun to play nico is a natural born astrid i think she's utterly brilliant she's so shining and i don't think i've ever met anyone who's so born to run and be on a film set what she brings to astrid is this sort of effortless uh call that sort of just comes through and it's not there's no trying it just is i've learned so much from working with nico watching her work watching her communicate on a set watching her communicate with producers and directors and hold her own and be able to hold her space be generous for others and be playful whilst being focused and she's got that star quality that seems that she was like born to do this nico is such a sweet person and and such an incredible actress and i don't think i could have done it without her and i don't even know i don't even know where to begin she just has this this energy to her you just you know you want to be around her you want to be her friend she's so humble so kind so caring and you know i'm glad to call her a friend it's not that common that with a massive live action like this that you kind of get to be in the actual space but the fact that we have seen the most kind of hyper realistic version of burke that we could is insane um going into the arena for the first time i remember dean was like when we were shooting this like massive wide of us stepping in and it's so vast and amazing and i remember dean being like really like amp up how cool this is and walking in and we were like we don't need to do that it's really cool it's the exact same thing for the village because you go in and just immediately you're actually in it as an actor it's the dream we were keen to create a distinct culture for the island of burke and one of the things we learned in the research for the film and that dean learned in the research for the previous three movies is that every culture around the world has dragon stories they tell so the animated movie tells the story about one group of vikings trying to root out one nest near them what we've expanded it to say is this island of burke is near a dragon's nest and the vikings traveled all over the world to find brave warriors from everywhere because and bring them back to burke because they know it's near a nest and if they can find the nest and stop and figure out the mystery of these dragons maybe they can save the world and that global approach speaks to viking culture there are many themes and ideas in the animated film that are fantastic that are relatable and that are universal and that speak to the world today starting with our main character hiccup and his feeling of not belonging of wanting to be seen of wanting to be authentic of wanting to be who he really is that's the great metaphor and how to train your dragon he's the one viking who doesn't feel like a viking he's the one viking who unlike his father who's the chief of the tribe doesn't want to kill the dragons which is what these vikings are there to do there's a great metaphor in that it's very relatable so what this kid does is he actually makes a connection to one of the dragons and realizes the way to get along the way to stop the battles between humans and dragons is to make a connection he completely got the character because he grew up with how to train a dragon he's got a lot of physical attributes that that the jay baruchel hiccup would not have had but i think he still managed to communicate sort of a sense of insecurity a sense of yearning for acceptance and and also the humor that comes along with that that movie as a kid i was so in it and to now me being in it is i can't fathom it i mean i'm so lucky and so fortunate and and just getting to do this with the lovely people is is a dream come true and an honor mason this hiccup is so perfect i'm so angry that someone that age can be so good he's so talented he's so funny he's so brilliant his hiccup and it's just amazing seeing him like say we'll be having like a silly joke or doing something like that the camera rolls and he's hiccup immediately and i think because we've all got very close we're so excited for him like i remember there was one scene that we were doing he has to say like a very cool line which i think he i think he just says like follow me or something like that but every time he did it we'd all be just because it looked so it was just he was like proper hiccup leading the recruits um yeah he's he's he's perfect he's the most brilliant hiccup that you could possibly imagine i think i mean nobody nobody on the planet earth could play stoic except for gerard throughout shoot we've really we really had this this bond a lot of the scenes he does are very intense so watching his process going into that is so fascinating to watch you know such an honor working natural uh raw talent um just shines through him so i was doing these scenes going wow i knew he was good and i knew he had to be good to get the role but then i'm doing these scenes like oh wow this gets good this gets good if you say what is the advantage of live action it's things like that getting to see a fresh take on hip hiccup with a brilliant actor who can really represent hiccup and we get that coming of age story we get his challenges we get his cockiness and humor and his odd bulk and a weirdness but still trying his best to you know how you like you say how does hiccup fit in in this tribe but how does he become cool in front of his friends but how does he also stick to who he thinks he is and what he knows he has to offer toothless is the most exciting pet you can have and also the world's fastest motorcycle it's a really special creature and a really special relationship that forms and you don't ride a motorcycle you drive a motorcycle and we thought a lot about but a motorcycle's not alive so we really don't think that you just sit on the back of these beasts and go we think of hiccup and toothless as co-pilots so we want to put the audience experientially in hiccup's seat as he pilots or co-pilots toothless and we're pushing ourselves to do flying in a way that hasn't really been seen before so we reimagined toothless as kind of a ghost in the viking world no one had ever seen one you hear it coming it has a very distinctive sound it has a very distinctive attack and the destruction is always devastating but the only real glimpse that you get of the dragon is how it blots out stars when it flies across the night sky we wanted to kind of create this sense of anticipation for what this creature would look like and then when hiccup comes across him in the woods the idea was that he would come across a dragon that's impressive it's black shiny it's scaly it looks really powerful and yet it's instead of the other dragons which are very much based on reptiles we wanted to go with the idea that this was more mammalian it was it was based on black panther and so it had an elegance to it so all of those considerations went into it we want it to seem powerful and elegant and different from the other dragons in terms of its design and also we wanted people to see their pets in toothless we wanted we wanted all the cues to be there we wanted people to be able to look at the live action version of toothless and say that's him but he's real they have these speakers so they can so they can talk to everybody and they put on test drive and the music started playing and everything just changed i mean like the day-old action the song was playing and i was on the dragon and that moment was so special and so magical i mean you're on a crazy dragon and the the mechanism the gimbal of it is so advanced and so kind of sometimes kind of scary but it's really cool yeah we've surrounded dean with with great uh creative imaginative crafts people in every area of the production whether it's our designer dominic walkins or our director of photography bill pope and so we have a wonderful team and what we're doing is building a world while our dragons will be very much created in the computer photorealistically so much of the world is being built stone by stone so that it's not just authentic but that when you're seeing the movie you will be immersed in an environment that you can touch and feel and that is part of the magic of filmmaking it's really hard to put into words just how incredible these sets are when you see stuff you kind of think like oh yeah well um it's probably on a blue screen somewhere but these are all real they're all built and they're built out of nothing like you tap the rock and it's hollow because they built the rock and they've you know made these stone steps in this huge building that we're in so being in it is so otherworldly and so incredible because it really is just like stepping into the film stepping into this giant world it's hard not to get a bit like goosy over it because it's really exciting and so huge and so special i don't think there's been a day where i haven't walked onto a set and just gone oh my wow this is amazing you know it's the scale of it is is incredible with that too comes challenges for an actor in terms of there are 400 people in this training arena and they're all watching you do your dialogue it's it's kind of terrifying really but you know the detail of everything is just it's just amazing you know dragon fans can expect from this film dragons there's lots of lovely dragons there's gerard butler and what's not to love mason thames and nico parker and their blossoming on set relationship and you know grumpy old 60 year old gobber it's funny and the action is going to be great and the characters there's a genuine warmth and affection there between them you know and that's because i think we as actors have have grown to like one another you know you need to see some really cool dragons do some really cool things i mean come on it's a knife but no it's just you know apart from the dragons and stuff it's just you know it's such a heartfelt story and made with so much love and passion everybody loves their characters and and the story everybody behind it all the sets everything is made with such love and i think that will come across on screen