One of the strangest Pokemon creatures included in the recently released, live-action
Pokemon: Detective Pikachu film is Mr. Mime. As you could guess from his appearance and name, Mr. Mime is based on both a clown and mime. He's by far the most human-looking Pokemon there is.
This would prove an issue to the VFX team as they would have to figure out a way to bring him to life without making him too realistic, else he'd only serve to creep out audiences. Pete Dionne, the VFX supervisor who worked on the film, recently explained to
DigitalArtsOnline (via
Gamefragger) how they went about doing this. By
clicking here, you can find out more on that.
At the same time, Dionne also revealed that the Pokemon's performance was actually based on a physical comic by the name of Trygve Wakenshaw. The film's director flew Wakenshaw to the set of the film from New Zealand so that he could act out Mr. Mime's scenes. The VFX team could then replicate the comedian's actions with Mr. Mime.
"Trygve is just absolutely hilarious. Rob Letterman brought him in after seeing a video online, and he did about three hours of workshopping the interrogation scene with him, which we recorded with multiple cameras," Dionne said. "We got absolute gold, and a large portion of that performance in the final film was inspired by Trigve’s original performance in the workshop."
Below you can watch one of the afformentioned comic's on-stage performances: