Why Pete Davidson Says Dog Man Role Is the “Best Arc I've Ever Been Given!”
The SNL comedy great explains why he pounced at the chance to voice Dog Man's family-friendly feline villain.
Staying as faithful as man’s best friend to the spirit of the beloved kids’ books that inspired it, DreamWorks Animation’s Dog Man the movie (fetch your tickets here!) is already a big hit with critics and audiences in only its first week of release.
The second animated feature film based on author Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants franchise, Dog Man spotlights its titular half-dog, half-man hero at the center of the movie’s cartoon chaos. But true to Pilkey’s Dog Man graphic novels, our fearless canine-cop main character isn’t all that much of a talker. Beyond his reliance on an animal-appropriate vocal grab bag (voiced by writer/director Peter Hastings) of hilarious whimpers, grunts, and growls, Dog Man remains a stoically silent protagonist — even as everyone else around him simply can’t stop yapping, including Pete Davidson's Petey the Cat.
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Why Pete Davidson pounced at the chance to voice Petey the Cat in Dog Man
While Dog Man himself might keep his words on a super-short leash, the rest of the movie’s cast — especially no-good nemesis Petey the Cat — has a ton of funny stuff to say. Voiced by Saturday Night Live comedy alum Pete Davidson (Meet Cute, Bupkis), Petey’s a gleefully evil sort of kitty-cat baddie… until, that is, he loses something dear to him and learns to (gasp!) cooperate with his dreaded cross-species rival in order to make things right.
There’s a surprisingly deep range to Petey’s kid-friendly emotional journey in the movie, so Davidson’s only half-joking — we think — when he says that giving voice to the fiery orange animated feline rates as one of his “best” character castings to date.
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“It's a really fun, loud, layered character. I don't get a lot of opportunities to stretch like that,” Davidson recently confided to CBS News, while adding (with a laugh) that “it’s the best arc I've ever been given. Usually I'm in a movie for, like, nine minutes, and then shot in the face, so it was nice to have a full [arc]!”
In all seriousness, the 31-year-old Davidson hails from a time when Pilkey’s Captain Underpants stories were burrowing deep into the pop-culture psyches of countless late-millennial kids. He definitely needed no convincing to pounce on the chance at becoming the film’s voice for Petey. “I'm a huge Dav Pilkey fan,” he confessed. “I grew up reading all the Captain Underpants books. My mom got them for me. All the young kids in my family, they all read Dog Man, they're obsessed with Dog Man. And then right around the time I started noticing that, we got the offer [to join the movie's voice cast].”
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Davidson might not even be exaggerating too much about how far the role of Petey invited him to stretch his acting chops in Dog Man. “Petey is a complicated character,” he explained in the movie's production notes. “He’s like your average guy who wants to be bad but, deep down, knows he should do the right thing. His flaws and tough past make him relatable. Even though he’s got this dark side, what really comes through is his desire to be loved.”
Where can you watch Dog Man?
Produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Universal Pictures, Dog Man the movie is now playing in theaters nationwide. Get your tickets here!
In addition to Davidson’s purr-fectly-cast role as Petey, Dog Man features an eclectic all-star voice acting ensemble that includes includes Lil Rel Howery, Isla Fischer, Stephen Root, and Ricky Gervais.
