Meet the Cat in the Hat you don’t know! In the wonderfully whimsical tradition of Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat comes to the big screen in his animated theatrical feature film debut, an all-new, epic adventure with an edge, where mischief, magic and mayhem reign supreme.
Doing what he does best, the Cat—voiced by Bill Hader—spreads joy to kids in his hilarious, signature and singularly irreverent way, transporting them and audiences on a fantastical journey through a world they’ve never seen before. In the film, our hero takes on his toughest assignment yet for the I.I.I.I. (Institute for the Institution of Imagination and Inspiration, LLC): to cheer Gabby and Sebastian, a pair of siblings struggling with their move to a new town. Known for taking things too far, this could be this agent of chaos’s last chance to prove himself…or lose his magical hat!
Starring alongside Hader are Xochitl Gomez, Matt Berry, Quinta Brunson, and Paula Pell, and featuring Tiago Martinez, Giancarlo Esposito, America Ferrera, Bowen Yang, and Tituss Burgess.
As the brand new trailer launches around the world today, Nick L’Barrow was invited to the global launch press conference to here star and executive producer Bill Hader, plus directors Alessandro Carloni and Erica Rivinoja talk about their new take on the iconic character!
Bill Hader on “chasing” the role of The Cat in the Hat, and playing the character on SNL…
Bill Hader: I know they didn’t write the SNL thing because I love The Cat in the Hat. It was more like the writers were going through a marriage issue and decided to use the character as a way of indirectly commenting on their spouse at home is what I think was happening [laughs].
But, no, I remember reading that book as a kid, and then reading it to my kids. I’ve also worked with these guys [Rivinoja and Carloni] before on different projects, and I’ve known them forever. So, you know, the combination of these two and the chance to play such an iconic character was like… yeah, I did chase it.
The script was also insanely funny. There were some little improvs here and there, so I guess as far as SNL, there was kind of taking that material and improvising on top of it. But they’re very good at communicating what the scene is and the emotion of it. But I got to do some stupid, weird things with my voice.
On bringing this classic story to a new audience…
Erica Rivinoja: The Cat in the Hat is a very beloved character. He’s classic and iconic, and everyone has a relationship with him because he’s really this sort of wish fulfillment character. We call him this “agent of chaos”. It’s just what every kid loves, they want to have this day of craziness and chaos. And we really tried to bring in what people love about the original book, which is, a cat shows up and everybody goes crazy and has fun!
Alessandro Carloni: We kind of used the book more as a jumping point for us, in the sense that the book became a question: is the cat really just out there to have a good time for himself, or is there more to it?
When we read the book, we realised that at the end, the kids seem to be a little more confident with themselves. Could it be that the cat is actually the greatest child psychologist? So, we basically used the book as our starting point, and the movie becomes an expansion of that adventure. We follow the cat at the end of the book to find out where does he go and discover more of the truth about him.
On animating Dr. Seuss’ iconic visual style…
Alessandro Carloni: The uniqueness about animation is that, much like in live action, we have amazing performers creating the characters with us, but then with everything being created from scratch, everything is open for us to imagine what it could look like. We have to build every shape, every leaf on every tree. And that’s what we’re excited about, we can actually explore these fantastical, incredible worlds that we’ve never seen before.
Erica Rivinoja: Our team was really, really amazing about using Seuss’ aesthetic and his iconic shape language and character language to really help design things so they feel there. There’s so many new characters in this movie, but they all feel like Seuss. Our team is so talented.
On the challenge of finding the voice of The Cat in the Hat…
Bill Hader: I felt like I was in really good hands with these guys and their script. I felt very free. But, it was actually so exhausting because you’re essentially screaming for four hours, and saying the same lines over and over again. These guys watched me have a full existential crisis. They kind of just left me in the booth, turned the lights off, and I just sit there! No, but, that was the only thing, I had to consciously pace myself because you get so tired just screaming.
Erica Rivinoja: We also shot something called lipstick cam, where we have the actors’ performances recorded because it makes it easier to do lip sync and get expressions for the animators. So, we definitely used a lot of Bill’s physicality for that.
Also the way animators shoot themselves for references is so fun. I would love to see a cut of the movie of just animators references.
On introducing more ‘Things’ after Thing 1 and Thing 2…
Erica Rivinoja: Well, they too are not well behaved! They are definitely consistent with the Things that you meet in the book. And as you saw in the trailer, we have Thing 3 and many, many more that come up. The Cat in the Hat is chaos, and the Things are extra chaos on top of that! And they’re so cute, too! I love how cute they are.
On the legacy of Dr. Seuss…
Bill Hader: I’m a big book reader, so I just remember getting into the habit of getting into bed and reading a book, and I started that with his books. I remember collecting them and having them all bound up in my room.
The Cat In The Hat will release in Australian cinemas February 2026.
