{"id":83758,"date":"2025-09-25T00:17:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T00:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/83758\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T00:17:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T00:17:15","slug":"the-movie-star-tells-fans-to-dance-bring-cat-ears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/83758\/","title":{"rendered":"The Movie Star Tells Fans to Dance, Bring Cat Ears"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Gabby\u2019s Dollhouse movie isn\u2019t available \u2014 yet (as Gabby would say, with emphasis). But now just days away from releasing in movie theaters across the country, Gabby herself wants to tell fans of all ages what to expect when Netflix<\/a>\u2018s popular preschool series goes big screen.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of fun. The little kids are going to stay entertained,\u201d star Laila Lockhart Kraner tells The Hollywood Reporter of DreamWorks Animation<\/a>\u2018s first live-action\/animated hybrid film, written and directed by Ryan Crego. \u201cThey\u2019re going to be able to sing and dance. But I also think there\u2019s going to be a lot for everybody. Even older members of the family, the parents, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKraner, who is now 17, was 12 when she was first cast as Gabby, the live-action girl who uses magic in her cat ears to \u201cpinch in\u201d and shrink herself, along with her favorite stuffed animal, to go inside an animated version of her vibrant dollhouse. Gabby, best pal Pandy and her ensemble of cat-inspired friends \u2014 Cakey, MerCat, Carlita, Catrat, Baby Box, Kitty Fairy, Pillow Cat and DJ Catnip \u2014 have taken young viewers on 76 episodes and 11 seasons of cat-adventures with the hit Netflix series, all culminating now in Universal Pictures\u2019 Gabby\u2019s Dollhouse: The Movie. (Season 12 will bring six new episodes in November.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 98-minute movie<\/a> follows Kraner\u2019s growing-up Gabby on a road trip with her Grandma Gigi (played by the iconic Gloria Estefan) to \u201cCat Francisco,\u201d where her dollhouse inadvertently finds its way into the hands of an eccentric cat lady named Vera, who is played by the also iconic Kristen Wiig. Gabby and her Gabby Cats then set off on a real-world\/animated adventure to save her dollhouse.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of funny comedy for everybody, and there are a lot of good messages that I think apply to all ages about keeping the magic of play alive,\u201d says Kraner of the movie\u2019s takeaways. \u201cI think that\u2019s something important for little kids to hear, and also for adults to hear. So it\u2019s a lot of fun for the whole family.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKraner says she was on set making an episode of Gabby\u2019s Dollhouse a couple of years ago when creators Traci Paige Johnson and Jennifer Twomey first floated the idea of making a Gabby movie to her. \u201cBut even then I wasn\u2019t sure how big it was going to be, if it was going to go into theaters or not. They just had a couple of concepts,\u201d she recalls. Then, enter animation creator, writer and director Crego, who was approached at a time when Gabby\u2019s Dollhouse was playing on loop in his own home.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis was my daughter\u2019s favorite show. We have every toy. That\u2019d be the coolest thing ever to make her favorite show into a movie. And, my son, who has grown up during the course of making this movie, has also fallen into the Gabby fandom,\u201d Crego tells THR. \u201cThere was a period where I would be writing and working on [the movie], and then I\u2019d come downstairs and hear [the show\u2019s theme song] Hey, Gabby!\u201c<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t(From left) Pandy Paws (Logan Bailey), Baby Box Cat (Maggie Lowe), Gabby (Laila Lockhart Kraner), Grandma Gigi (Gloria Estefan) and Kitty Fairy (Tara Strong) in Gabby\u2019s Dollhouse: The Movie.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDreamWorks Animation<\/p>\n

\n\tWiig was at the top of their list to play the cat lady villain whose improv brings the biggest laughs (and, according to Crego, also had the crew in stitches). Crego, inspired by his Cuban heritage, said a lightning bolt went off when casting Gabby\u2019s Gigi. \u201cWe were really lucky that she jumped on board because it\u2019s hard to imagine anyone else in that role,\u201d he says of Estefan, who helps expand Gabby\u2019s world and also explains its magic. The voice cast also includes Thomas Lennon, Jason Mantzoukas, Ego Nwodim, Kyle Mooney, Melissa Villase\u00f1or and Fortune Feimster.<\/p>\n

\n\tCrego hopes to create a classic family film that every generation can enjoy together in the theater, but his guiding principle was to maintain the key elements of the series, which often sees Gabby breaking the fourth wall to speak with the audience or encourage dancing and sing-alongs to the catchy soundtrack. (Pre-released songs \u201cKaleidoscope,\u201d \u201cGabby Dollhouse World\u201d and \u201cPinching In\u201d are already available.)<\/p>\n

\n\tIn fact, the Gabby filmgoing experience, like the series, wants active participation from viewers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe tried really hard to make sure that the core audience of Gabby fans was going to be served first and foremost,\u201d Crego says. \u201cAs much as I talk about how the parents are going to love it and adults are going to get something out of it, before anything, it was about the fans of Gabby and finding all the things that make the series so successful, and then bringing more to the screen for a bigger adventure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSo Kraner encourages moviegoers of all ages to keep that spirit alive. \u201cSometimes in movie theaters you\u2019re not really supposed to get up, but this is not that case. It\u2019s totally allowed!\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA big part of the movie theater experience that is so special about\u00a0Gabby\u2019s Dollhouse: The Movie is that you\u2019re encouraged to go and sing and dance,\u201d she continues. \u201cThat\u2019s always such a big part of the show that everybody really connects with, so being able to do that in a theater of other little\u00a0Gabby fans is going to be such a blast. I hope everybody gets dressed up and brings their cat ears. It\u2019s supposed to be a fun and inclusive movie experience. The viewer has always been part of the story with\u00a0Gabby\u00a0and that\u2019s even more important in this movie. We want you to laugh and dance with us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Gabby\u2019s Dollhouse movie isn\u2019t available \u2014 yet (as Gabby would say, with emphasis). But now just days…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[55633,18,117,55634,19,17,327,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-83758","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-dreamworks-animation","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-gabbys-dollhouse","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-movies","15":"tag-netflix"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}