Bryan Cranston on how Isle of Dogs is scarily relevant to today’s political climate

The premise is as follows: sometime in the near future in the fictional Japanese city of Megasaki, the Mayor (voiced by Kunici Nomura) expels all dogs from the city after an outbreak of dog flu. The dogs end up on Trash Island – beginning with Spots, who belongs to the Mayor’s 12 year old ward Atari (Koyu Rankin). When Atari arrives on Trash Island to rescue Spots, he is joined by a pack of violent street dogs, headed by Chief (Cranston).

In Isle of Dogs, Cranston’s Chief is intimidating, gruff and a loner. Nonetheless, he is capable of great empathy and affection. Cranston, always a big fan of Wes Anderson, accepted the role without even needing to hear the premise, and revealed to Hot Press that he thinks the world could relate to the fictional animated characters on the screen.

“There are so many themes at play, that anyone around the world can apply to whatever’s happening in their own society.”

The idea of forced isolation or shunning of the dogs seems allegorical to Cranston.

“There’s so much craziness going on in my country right now; the xenophobia, fear mongering and greed. And then you have the immigration issue, segregation and the like. There are just a tremendous amount of issues in the movie that you can see are relevant to today’s life” he said.

This is Wes Anderson’s second animated film, following on from the ‘love it or hate it’ 2009 release of the adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox. The decision to animate the film, Cranston says, was inspired.

“I believe Wes was right that if you tried to make this live action, where there were refugees or something, I just don’t think it would be effective”

Read Bryan’s full interview in the current issue of Hot Press