Wallace and Gromit finally won two Bafta Awards this weekend, and Feathers McGraw has given Aardman another unlikely achievement.
Vengeance Most Fowl aired on Christmas Day and has proved the enduring popularity of the loveable clay characters, while sinister penguin Feathers continues to be one of cinemas most evil villains.
On Sunday, the feature won in both the best animated and best children and family film categories, which has been ‘a sigh of relief’.
The movie was nominated for three prizes (Conclave took home the gong for outstanding British film), and both creator Nick Park and director Merlin Crossingham were delighted.
Speaking before the wins, Nick exclusively told Metro: ‘It’s great that it’s come back with such a force and such a reception.’
Merlin added: ‘But for me, it’s a sigh of relief, because Nick has had so much success in the past. For me, it is like a massive cherry on top to get these nominations.’
Feathers has also seen soaring popularity after his return in the film, which comes more than three decades after he first appeared in 1993’s The Wrong Trousers.
‘He’s since become, apparently, the number-one character tattoo request in the UK, which I think is marvellous,’ Merlin said, while Nick quipped: ‘That’s an achievement in itself actually.’
Merlin agreed: ‘Yeah, that’s an achievement alongside the Bafta nominations!’
Nick explained that Feathers’ comeback ‘wasn’t really by design’, as Aardman didn’t actually have any plans to essentially make ‘a sequel for the character’.
‘He was very much an answer to a story issue we had. At the start, it was going to be just about Wallace building a robot gnome for Gromit. It was a late breaking idea because we needed something more menacing in the story,’ he explained.
‘And there was Feathers, ready and willing. And he brought in that real sense of menace, and a personal vendetta. So it suddenly became Cape Fear with penguins – or a chicken.’
The film itself has been triumph in the eyes of fans, critics and now award season, and Nick is glad to see that recognition while staying true to traditional techniques like stopmotion.
He added: ‘As long as we keep being entertaining and creating compelling stories and characters and comedy, in our case, we’ll keep an audience interested.’
When it comes to Feathers, Nick previously told Metro that ‘you’ve got to love your villain as much as the other characters’.
There is a real method to the madness, as Nick and his co-director Merlin work hard to make such a silent, still character so unnerving.
‘He’s kind of expressionless, and the way he moves – which is really established by Steve Box on The Wrong Trousers, Steve Box animated Feathers and established that inner strength,’ Merlin explained.
‘We’ve really not changed him. We’ve carried him on. And he is challenging to animate because he doesn’t move – and actually, animators love moving things. That’s the reason for being animators!’
Nick insisted: ‘The power of subtlety is something that can easily be grossly underestimated.’
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