Adam Elliot won the Best Animated Short Film Academy Award 20 years ago for Harvie Krumpet. He followed that up with acclaimed stop-motion feature Mary & Max. His latest claymation movie is Memoir of a Snail, which opens in theaters on Oct. 25. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: This is one of the most detailed animated films I’ve ever seen. Congratulations.

Adam Elliot: Thank you very much. We’re just relieved after eight long years the film is being received well.

JM: Wow. Snails usually are slow. Animated movies take a long time. Was that your interest in wanting to do an animated feature about a snail?

AE: (laughs) Well actually we had to come up with a name for our company to make this film, so we called it Snail Pace Films. We thought it was a joke at the time. Little did we realize it would actually take off. I love snails. I’ve always had a fascination with them, as I think most people do. They’re such alien creatures. And when I was trying to come up with a creature or animal that Grace would collect, I thought of ladybirds, pigs and ducks. There’s something about snails I found really fascinating and a great metaphor for Grace’s mental state. You attach a snail’s antennae and they retract into its shell. I love that because that’s what Grace is doing — she’s constantly retracting from the world. And I love the spiral on a snail’s shell. A beautiful little pattern. For us, that was very symbolic of life going full circle and a lovely visual motif to have throughout the film.

JM: Grace is voiced by Sarah Snook. She tells her life story to a snail named Sylvia. The film is also about, as you said, Grace feeling like a snail — being in her shell, wondering about her life (what has happened and what may happen). She talks about vividly remembering her childhood… before she was three or four years old. Did you want to include that detail because that also relates to you? Do you remember when you were born and those first few years?

AE: I certainly don’t, but I know people who have these incredible memories that go right back. I’ve always been a bit skeptical, actually. I think, “Really? You remember that far back?” But I thought it was a beautiful little touch for the film for somebody who’s very sensitive of the world around her and absorbs everything. This film isn’t for children: it tackles some challenging subject matter. I wanted to go really deep into a character’s psyche and explore every up and every down, so by the end of the film you really have experienced Grace’s entire life with her. You really empathize with her.

JM: We’re with her every step of the way. Her twin Gilbert is voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee. And friend Pinky is voiced by Jacki Weaver, who’s terrific. What’s unique about their voice performances is that the majority of it is kind of narration — telling these aspects of their lives. Was that unique for you in working with these voice actors?

AE: Yeah. I love narration as a vehicle for telling a story. And for us being indie filmmakers, animation is very slow, therefore very expensive, and any shortcuts we can use to speed up the process we certainly [do] — and voiceover is certainly one of those tricks. But also there’s something really intimate that I love about voiceover. It makes the film more personable. And I love monologues. Growing up having to be forced to watch and read Shakespeare. My favorite is Pinky’s monologue towards the end. I spent a lot of time writing that one. The script took me three years alone. I wrote 16 drafts. I tend to be a bit of an OCD person. I obsessed about every single word in this film.

JM: Oftentimes within the same shot… scene… moment… minute… you have comedy, drama, heartfelt emotion and sometimes disappointment that these characters feel. Is that challenging to balance all of those emotions in such short periods of time?

AE: It’s very tricky to write. I’ve always said that if you’re not an emotional wreck by the end of one of my films, then I’ve failed. My films are very dense, and I’m trying to push every emotional button on the audience, so they come out of the cinema exhausted, but in a good way.

JM: A lot of people collect things… but sometimes it can take over you. What did you want to show visually and tonally as far as Grace’s relationship with snails, especially as the film goes on?

AE: I knew there was a deep psychological reason for hoarding. I did a lot of research and read a lot of books and spoke to psychologists on hoarding. The more that I researched, the more I discovered that extreme hoarders have suffered a huge degree of trauma at some point in their lives — and more often than not the loss of a child, or a sibling or even a twin. Hoarding is a coping mechanism. Everything they collect, they give huge sentimental value to and they can’t bear to throw any of it away. Extreme hoarders are extremely shameful and embarrassed. Luckily now there is a lot of help.

JM: You won your Oscar 20 years ago for “Harvie Krumpet”. Can you believe it’s been 20 years, and what do you remember most from Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller calling your name?

AE: (laughs) And they were dressed as Starsky and Hutch, which was a TV show I was raised on. It was all very surreal. We were certainly the underdogs. We were up against Disney, Pixar and Fox Studios [Blue Sky Studios]. Even my mom said we had no chance of winning. So it was a real shock to the system. But it was a wonderful thing that happened to us. It allowed me to make my first feature, “Mary & Max”, and continue on. We’re so grateful to The Academy for that award because it really did change my career.

JM: This film is set (when you grew up) in the ’70s in Australia. You’ve directed shorts. You’ve directed features. You’ve won an Academy Award. What is the memoir of an animator?

AE: (laughs) Very boring, I think. As stop-motion animators, it’s an art form that’s all-encompassing. We spend a lot of time in the dark by ourselves. We’ve all got Vitamin D deficiencies. There’s not much time for anything else. But I think all animators and artists are obsessive in some way, and we’re so lucky that we have an art form that we can express ourselves through and just disappear into. It’s very meditative, and I see drawing and animating as my form of yoga. It’s very mindful. In a world which is cluttered with stimulation, and we’re all overloaded by imagery, and we’re drowning in CGI, I think anything hand-crafted or handmade is a great place to take your brain when you’re feeling overloaded and you need some room for solace and time-out.

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Jackson Murphy

Jackson Murphy is a movie critic and entertainment columnist. He is the creator of the website Lights-Camera-Jackson.com, and has made numerous appearances on television and radio.

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