A popular DreamWorks Animation series is coming to the big screen. Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie opens in theaters nationwide this Friday September 26th. Director Ryan Crego shares highlights of making the charming and ambitious live-action/CG feature, which is one of the fall movie season’s major family events. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: The show has been a big hit for several years. It premiered in early 2021, around the time that “Arlo The Alligator Boy”, your other feature film, was on Netflix. So around that time were you checking out “Gabby’s Dollhouse”, as you were wrapping up the “Arlo” movie?

Ryan Crego: My daughter became a huge fan. That was in that pandemic era and “Arlo” was releasing — and yeah, she was the prime age. I was working from home. I caught a lot of “Gabby’s Dollhouse”. (laughs) And I became a fan of it. As a parent, you’re always looking at, “What are my kids watching? od, I hope they watch something that is cool and fun.” I had a great relationship with DreamWorks, so off and on I would talk to Margie Cohn, the head of DreamWorks and be like, “Hey, when are you releasing toys for this thing?” Just as a fan. “I know we’re talking business about other stuff, but Gabby’s Dollhouse, let’s talk about it for a second.” So at a certain point they were looking to make this movie and one of the executives was kind of like, “Hey, would you be interested in meeting?” And I was like, “Are you kidding?” The thought of turning my daughter’s favorite show into a movie… I couldn’t pass up.

JM: I love the scale of this film. That really impressed me, especially the animated sequences. We start with this “Dollhouse World” song and you’re just immersed in it immediately.

RC: To get Gabby in the dollhouse and explore the world of the dollhouse that we’ve seen on the series… and how can we elaborate and make it bigger and cooler and more immersive? So getting that right up front in the film was important. It also gives us a sense of what Gabby has at stake when the Dollhouse goes rolling away from her. Part of the trick of this film was getting in and out of the animated worlds and making it feel seamless and making sure that the animated world was the most immersive and the most exciting — but that Cat Francisco was also cool, but in its own way, but didn’t get too cartoony.

JM: DreamWorks going bold this year with live-action CG combos of this and the successful “How to Train Your Dragon” film. And yes, the Dollhouse comes loose here and goes into Cat Francisco and you play with the streets in the live-action sequences and the angles of all that. And there are also little details of where you can put cat ears around the city. That must have been a lot of fun.

RC: (laughs) So many cats. It’s crazy. Our poor production designer… the whole team. On the live-action we had a corral of all the artists and every time you walked by, everyone was working on cats. Cat posters, cat art, cat sculptures, cat windows, signage. They went deep.

JM: There’s a cat banana statue in this. Where did that come from?

RC: That was our [live-action] production designer Justin Ludwig’s creation. I didn’t realize how big it was gonna be, so when I walked onto the set and I saw that thing, I was like, “Oh my God.” I fell in love with it. It’s in a warehouse somewhere, I’m sure. But it really made me feel like in the best way, shows like “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse”, which really inspired me when I was young. Seeing cool stuff like that come to life, these big art pieces in a house, I felt like it was really fun to decorate that space and get that in there.

JM: Kristen Wiig — you really let her just do her thing. She’s loose, free and fun as Vera, the cat lady… in that house with that statue. For the parents and the grandparents who have watched her for a long time — “Bridesmaids” and “SNL” — watching her in this, they’re gonna have a ball.

RC: That’s awesome. Thank you. Yeah, that was super important. Her believing in this project and signing on was a dream come true. She’s a true collaborator. She’s incredible with improv. She’s so funny and… ultra aware of what’s happening in the story and so all of her choices, even while she might go crazy with ad libs and things, she’s really aware of the point of the scene and what she’s got to accomplish as a character.

JM: We have watched Laila Lockhart Kraner grow up with this show. And this is a movie about growing up. It’s about remembering the toys from your childhood, and that theme really comes across.

RC: She’s incredible and she keeps getting better and smarter. She’s really growing up and maturing in such an incredible way. I think she’s a fascinating young woman. I think she’s got the whole world ahead of her. To be able to work with her and take Gabby to the next level was really exciting for me. We’ve really built a strong bond and friendship and trust. And the story is about… growing up. Life is gonna change as you get older, and how do you still find your space to play and to have fun and be imaginative and creative? So it was really cool to kind of be a part of that ’cause she is living that experience as well, as the story is telling that.

JM: I think this film is for kids to experience the immersive worlds and the fun characters in the visuals, which are glowing, but also I feel like parents and grandparents are gonna go, “I wanna remember my childhood through these scenes and I want my kids and grandkids to grow up and be great young adults and adults like Gabby.” Did you think about that a lot as you were making this?

RC: Yeah. My daughter was also a big part of the inspiration for me as a father telling a story and wanting to connect with not just the kids in the audience, but the parents, grandparents, everyone — to really think about… it’s a precious time when kids are at that age where they’re really exploring play and inventing stories and imagination — and just wanting them to hold onto that as long as they can. And then as someone who does it for a living to say, “It’s also okay to do that as you get older and you can even make a career out of it.” (laughs)

JM: And the fact that this is a rare G-rated theatrical release… for any movie that’s rare these days. Everything seems to be PG for a little bit. You got the G rating, and it works.

RC: It was part of the trick of taking something that is in the preschool space and then elevating it and aging it up a bit — but not losing the fact that our core audience is fairly young and we don’t wanna alienate them. My early pitch for the movie was kind of like, “It’s like the cast of a preschool show got caught in a bigger movie.” They’re all the same characters. They just got swept up in this gigantic experience that’s bigger than them and they’re trying to navigate it and find a way to solve the problems, to find a way out, to get back to where they belong.

JM: There is a moment early on where Gabby and Gigi (played by Gloria Etefan) meet Shrek at Universal Studios. We see a quick snapshot. Have you gone to Universal Studios and met Gabby?

RC: Yeah, I have. I love seeing her. The Gabby mascot is so cute. I just got pictures with her the other day, actually. It was important for me… I kind of grew up working on “Shrek” stuff — right outta college, my first animated work was on “Shrek”… I was on “Shrek the Third” for two weeks, and then I did “Shrek the Halls” and all these other things. That’s actually one of the official ones from Universal Studios that was mailed to set, so we could do that photo shoot.