In the new action-comedy The Bad Guys from DreamWorks Animation, based on The New York Times best-selling book series, a crackerjack criminal crew of animal outlaws are about to attempt their most challenging con yetābecoming model citizens.
Awkwafina lends voice to the tech-savvy Ms. Tarantula along with an immensely talented voice cast in the action animated feature film – Sam Rockwell as the dashing pickpocket Mr. Wolf, Marc Maron as the adroit safecracker Mr. Snake, Craig Robinson as the master-of-disguise Mr. Shark and Anthony Ramos as the short-fused muscle Mr. Piranha.
Sharp-tongued, genius hacker and expert multi-tasker, the most independent member of the gang, Ms. Tarantula is always quick with the comebacks. As the gangās only female member, she doesnāt cut the āGuysā any slack. She prides herself on perfection. When she encounters an un-hackable code, she goes into ābeast modeāāemploying her eight legs to achieve super-cyber decrypting speeds.
In Aaron Blabeyās book series, Tarantula is actually a āMr.ā But when adapting the story for the screen, Blabey was supportive of the filmmakers switching the character to be a kick-butt female techie. Producer Rebecca Huntley has loved audiencesā reception to Ms. Tarantula. āOne of the surprising things was how parents responded to the fact that Ms. Tarantula was representing women and girls in S.T.E.M. Sheās a cool, confident hacker, and to have audiences see her as a role model in that regard was wonderful.ā
She was thrilled to join such a brilliant group of fellow voice performers, as well as occasionally work alongside themāa rarity in animation. āThis is a stacked cast of brilliant actors, and Iām a huge fan of all my fellow Bad Guys,ā Awkwafina says. āWhen I heard who was going to be in it, I was mind-blown.
The actor enjoyed playing a character who is not unconstrained by societal rules. āThe Bad Guys are pretty much the villains of everything,ā Awkwafina says. āThey scare people out of restaurants, which I imagine would be great because you could get a table anywhere. As a group of friends, they do quite like each other. Because theyāre such outcasts in the world, they relish in who they are.ā
Additionally, Awkwafina admired how deftly the source material and the script balanced joyful imagination and poignant themes. āThe story is pretty existential, and these are characters with sincere dilemmas,ā Awkwafina says. āIt is symbolic of how we, as humans, see ourselves, how society does and how we embody thatāuntil we realize that we donāt have to be defined by certain things. I like the way that The Bad Guys plays with aspects of good and bad. Those are two terms that we see misconstrued all the time. We see people that look bad but arenāt, as well as people who look good but arenāt.ā
A Universal Pictures International release, The Bad Guys will open in cinemas on April 27.