Hamish Grieve is the director of the new animated wrestling comedy Rumble, which premieres this Wednesday December 15th on Paramount+. I go 10 rounds… I mean questions… with Grieve, who discusses his WWE influences, the all-star cast and why Rumble is worth the multi-year wait.

Jackson Murphy: This is loosely based on the graphic novel “Monster on the Hill”, but you also put this wrestling spin on it. What inspired you to take a look at this graphic novel and give it that wrestling twist?

Hamish Grieve: I think… (laughs)… You know how animation works — and development. It was a very long process and many twists and turns that kind of ended-up with this great graphic novel about Victorian monsters in England… ended-up a giant wrestling film. (laughs) I can’t say that I was the one behind all of it. I think the six years or so to get to me were part of that. And very similar to “How to Train Your Dragon“: this great source material that really inspired people and then it took on a life of its own.

JM: Amazing — six years and then it got to you. The wrestling is fun and really cool and WWE is directly involved in this. What were some of the most exciting parts about collaborating with them on the tone and the feel of it all?

HG: Very early on, Becky Lynch (otherwise known as “The Man”), who’s one of the top female wrestlers actually came to Paramount and I had lunch with her and I did a deep dive. My experience with the current wrestling world was somewhat limited at the time. Now of course I’m a super fan having had a deep dive in it. Becky came and I had some great chats with her, and of course she’s in the movie. And then with WWE: we went to WrestleMania and I was behind the scenes there and down on the floor and in the executive boxes and seeing that insane world and getting some great insights into the art of it and the athleticism of it and the big show, of course. It was amazing. And I was a fan from the ’80s of WWF. There was even a British wrestling scene, which was somewhat less impressive than WWF. I’m from England. I even put some Easter Eggs in from my childhood British wrestling icons in there.

JM: There you go! And that is a wrestling fan’s dream to be able to experience the WWE events like you. I think kids and parents will love watching this together. And what you really capture well, especially early on, is the feel that we’re in an energetic sports town. I was in Philadelphia recently for an Eagles game. How did you want to portray that sports town feel in “Rumble”?

HG: We talked a lot about that. It is a sports movie, really. There are lots of references to, like, Green Bay. I’m an Arsenal fan. That feeling on match day when the whole neighborhood is marching towards the stadium — that was something I tried to capture. It’s a wrestling film, but it’s really about all of that love of sports and throwing yourself with passion into a crazy thing.

JM: And with this movie, you’ve got human girl Winnie and wrestling monster Steve. He is 22 tons. He’s 43 feet tall. They team up. It’s interesting to watch the size proportions of everything when it comes to a lot of the scenes. How was it trying to do all of that with the animation?

HG: Honestly, that was the biggest challenge with this movie. But with any good challenge, I feel like it actually made us make really interesting choices and come-up with really creative solutions. Trying to get a two-shot or an “over the shoulder” with one character who’s almost 50 feet tall and one character who’s five feet tall is difficult, so you have to come-up with these ways to get [Winnie] up in the frame. And you have to choose these interesting compositions. I actually think that’s one of the most exciting things about the movie. It feels very different from standard animation films because the scale is so different and the choices we have to make to make it work. It’s kind of a two-hander. It’s quite an intimate film — their relationship. Creating an intimacy with a giant scale was a real challenge, but I think really interesting as well.

JM: You definitely pull that off. You are also the co-writer. I really like… you’re not supposed to like Tentacular, he’s the villain in this… but I like how you wrote that character: what he says, what he does, how Terry Crews is able to give that voice performance. What were some of your goals (without giving too much away) with how you wanted to give us Tentacular?

HG: Obviously there’s a lot of touchstones in wrestling: the heel turn and going from the face to the heel… and that showmanship and The Rock and the greats in the ’80s like Hulk Hogan and all these character artists. That was a big part of it. (laughs) And then Terry Crews obviously is Terry. We had some great conversations before he started because he was a professional athlete. He was an American football player and then he bounced around. He wasn’t a professional wrestler but he did this gladiators thing. (laughs) He was very aware of that world of being an athlete and that hunger you need and the sort of upside of that. To be the best at something, you kind of have to need to destroy — vanquish all your opponents. We talked about that coming into it and we wanted him to be a great villain. That was really important to me as well, that he was a smart villain. His motivations were as interesting as our main characters, and actually very similar in a lot of ways. All of that came together, and you put it in a giant shark creature with tentacles and it becomes its own crazy thing.

JM: I completely agree with that. He’s a smart villain and you’re interested to see what he does next. And you’re also interested — and thoroughly entertained — with Mac & Marc. “The Mac & Marc Show”: the commentators in this. You got Stephen A. Smith, along with Jimmy Tatro. They are hilarious.

HG: With Stephen A. Smith, it wasn’t so much directing as just saying, “And go!” He would give us exactly what we wanted, which was himself. I don’t know: can you ratchet up Stephen A. Smith? (laughs) I feel like he was pretty much a 10 all the time. It was so much fun to watch him go. And Jimmy is a great comedic actor and great at improvising and has that ridiculous voice, which he even lowered in the recordings, to the point where he would get light-headed and we’d have to stop just to let him get his breath back. He would be able to take that material and riff with it and bring that slightly punch-drunk character to life.

JM: That’s great. The final half hour, which they’re in a lot of, is really funny. You also have Michael Buffer, who gets to say, “Let’s Get Ready to Rumble!” in this. Did that moment give you chills?

HG: (laughs) It was amazing having him come in and just… “Okay, let’s hear it.” And he did it, and it’s pretty hard to direct that. “With more feeling now, Michael.” It’s his catchphrase. It was amazing to have him do that. And then he did a bunch of other stuff for us. He does some of the voiceover stuff at the beginning that works really well. You recognize that voice immediately and you’ve heard it so many times on so many big occasions that it really helps set-up that first fight.

JM: Oh yeah. In a monster wrestling animated movie, you gotta have Michael Buffer! I wanna point out one other voice cast member, Tony Danza. He doesn’t do a lot of movies, and it was really cool that he was able to be part of this one. What was so special about working with Tony Danza, and what did he see in this project that made him want to become attached to it?

HG: Much like Terry, Tony was a boxer for a long time.

JM: That’s right.

HG: He sparred with some of the greats, actually. He just really understood this world. He understood this coach character [Siggy] inside out and was so giving in his performance. It was so much fun to see him really go there and give it his all. And Siggy’s one of my favorite characters in the movie. I wish there was more of him, honestly, but hard to do in an 85-minute movie.

JM: Right.

HG: Trust me, there’s a whole backstory about Siggy. I’ll put it in the sequel or something. (laughs)

JM: Nice. Yeah more of him and more of Mac & Marc. That would be really good.

HG: Exactly. You wanna find out how Siggy lost his leg, right?

JM: True. You wanna find out more about all these characters because they’re so likable. They’re so energetic and are gonna make kids and parents smile as they watch this movie. And I really like what “Rumble” says about generations and families and legacy. What did you want to accomplish with those themes?

HG: It’s funny because you come into a movie and you’re searching for this unifying principle: the theme or the conversation or whatever you want to call it. And we already had this structure with the two parents and it just seemed the most natural thing in the world. You’re making a movie about these two characters whose parents were the best at what they did, and it’s how do you deal with that? It’s a very specific problem, in a way. Not everyone has parents who are the best in the world at what they do, right? It was trying to find the universal part in that. And of course we all come from somewhere — we all come from a family, or don’t come from a family. We’re all struggling to figure out how we relate to the past and what our own past is going forward. And that’s what their story is about. Once we figured that out, everything fell into place. And you’re right: it is a movie about legacy and how you honor legacy. People really seem to be [responding] to that, so I’m really happy about that. (laughs) I have my own issues with my dad, who’s actually also a director. So maybe there’s some personal stuff in there as well.

JM: You were previously at DreamWorks working on some movies, including the hilarious “Captain Underpants” film. Is that how you came in touch with Simon Otto, who I interviewed recently, and is an animation consultant on this film?

HG: Yeah. DreamWorks is a pretty tight place. Me and Simon go way back. When there was a chance of him coming in… [he brought] his insane expertise to get all the animators up to speed and drilled down on what our animation style was. Such a joy to have him. He’s a good friend so it was great to have him to really bring the quality up to the place that it needed to be. My production designer Christophe Lautrette, was at DreamWorks. Matt Landon, my editor, was the editor on “Captain Underpants”. So it was a bit of an old school show, in that respect.

JM: I remember seeing a trailer for [“Rumble”] almost two years ago before “Sonic the Hedgehog”. I’m so glad that it’s finally here. What does it mean to you that this is going to be on Paramount+ for families for this holiday season?

HG: I think we hold a record for the gap between a first trailer and an actual release. (laughs) I’m just really happy that people are gonna be able to watch it this Christmas because I do think it’s a fun family movie. It’s about family. I think people aren’t really expecting that of it. It’s an underdog story. It’s giant monsters. It’s wrestling. But I think it doesn’t have any expectations around it, so hopefully it’s gonna really be emotional as well as a ridiculous, silly, giant monster movie watch.