For 40 years, fans of Dr. Seuss’The Loraxhave wondered about The Once-ler.
could know for sure.
Dr. Seuss fans, prepare to lay your eyes on The Once-ler.
What’s a Thneed?
(Seuss explained that a Thneed was simply “a Fine-Something-That-All-People-Need.")
This decision was made after studying some evidence the doctor left behind.
NEXT PAGE: Seuss' Clues and MORE movie images!
Actually, it was his Snuvv that gave it away.
This rhyme explains it (as much as any Seussian nonsense verse can.)
“But okay, he’s wearing gloves.
You’re not going to put gloves on a monster.”
Making the Once-ler a man, and not some twisted fiend, had a philosophical underpinning as well.
It’s somebody very, very different.'
And so it takes you off the hook.”
Choosing Helms as the voice was a way to further lend him an everyman quality.
Who can resist that surly little fellow?
So when he heard the movie was being made he was willing to take any role at all.
Now you might add the Once-ler to that list.
It’s why Helms and the filmmakers chose not to do an outrageous voice for the character.
“I felt that was the best representation for the young Once-ler.”
“He’s pure of heart when we meet him.
He has no nefarious agenda,” Meledandri adds.
“He’s just going off to follow his path and seize his piece of the American dream.
He’s in this frontier doing that, in this beautiful setting.
Had he not been carried away by greed, everything would have gone okay.”
“There is a little more poignancy there.”
“So we imagined, it would be a family that is motivated themselves by greed.”
The fact that they’re all sporting gruvvulous gloves?
“They absolutely wear their desires on their sleeve,” Meledandri jokes.
He’s filling a hole in himself."
The saddest thing of all is that he knew what he was doing, and did it anyway.
The Lorax warned him.
