Shawn Mendes, superstar recording artist and Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter, brings Lyle, the singing crocodile to vocal life, in Columbia Pictures’ new musical comedy Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (in Philippine cinemas October 12).
Based on the best-selling book series by Bernard Waber, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile is a live-action / CGI musical comedy that brings this beloved character to a new, global audience.
Mendes describes Lyle as a character driven by love. “He just wants to have a family, a home, and feel connected to people,” says Mendes, “and love is the reason I sing, too – I sing when I feel comfortable, when I feel accepted. I relate to him a lot.”
“Hearing your own voice come out of an animated character is such a weird experience,” Mendes continues. “It can be a bit of an out-of-body experience to hear your voice coming out of a crocodile, he adds, but what he wasn’t expecting was how much the animators would capture of Mendes himself. “While I was singing in the studio, the animators were filming my facial expressions, and then animating Lyle to make similar facial expressions that I was making.”
The film features original songs performed by Shawn Mendes, Javier Bardem, and Constance Wu, written by the songwriting team behind The Greatest Showman, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.
For Mendes, singing the work of Pasek and Paul brought to the fore the way that gifted songwriters can make the songs of a musical work a dual purpose, building on each other as part of a cohesive whole and also providing a discrete, joyful experience. “When you watch one of their movies or shows, you’re digesting the entire thing at once, and you may not realize just how smart they are,” says Mendes.
“You don’t realize how complex and how beautiful these songs are, how lyrically astonishing they are, and how much effort they put into them. But when you’re in the recording studio, going through the songs, it’s an eye-opening experience,” he concludes.
