Zazie Beetz and Lilly Singh on The Bad Guys and Making an Animated Heist Movie for Families

With director Pierre Perifel’s The Bad Guys opening in theaters this weekend, I recently spoke with Zazie Beetz and Lilly Singh about making the animated action comedy. Based on the popular Scholastic book series by Aaron Blabey, the film follows a criminal crew of animal outlaws as they attempt their most challenging con yet — becoming model citizens. The Bad Guys also features the voice of Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Craig Robinson, Anthony Ramos, Awkwafina, Richard Ayoade, and Alex Borstein. The film is written by Etan Cohen and Hilary Winston and produced by Damon Ross and Rebecca Huntley. The executive producers are Aaron Blabey, Cohen and Patrick Hughes. During the interview, Beetz and Singh talked about what it’s like making a heist movie for families, what people would be surprised to learn about the making of the film, how Beetz recorded herself dancing so the animators could use it for her character, their reaction seeing the finished film for the first time, and what someone should watch if yo