SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Strays. If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk!
At the end of the first act in the new comedy Strays, a promise of sorts is made to the audience. Reggie, a Border Terrier voiced by Will Ferrell, announces to a new group of canine friends that it is his intention to bite off the penis of his former owner, Doug (played by Will Forte), and it’s such a wild proposition that you just know that the movie is going to pull it off.
Sure enough, Strays does feature a climax with Reggie chomping on a scrotum – and there’s a fun story behind how the production pulled off the violent ending using real dogs.
I had the pleasure of interviewing director Josh Greenbaum last week during the virtual press day for Strays, and after digging into how little CGI is used by the production and how the movie’s best cameo came together, we took a venture into spoiler territory. I asked the filmmaker to explain how the whole sequence was orchestrated, and he began by noting that he always knew the sequence had to be the adventure’s biggest moment. Said Greenbaum,
From the get go, I set out to say, 'I need to make a kind of cinematic moment out of it; it's the climax of our film. ' I was like, 'I want this to feel big and epic.' And so obviously I started certain things like I shot on a thousand frame per second motion control unit for that shot where the curtains all light on fire and two dogs are pulling the legs apart and Reggie's going to town.
At the end of Strays, Reggie returns to his suburban home with Bug (Jamie Foxx), Maggie (Isla Fisher) and Hunter (Randall Park), and the protagonist confronts his former owner about his past abuse. A scuffle ensues, but before too long, Doug is left injured on his back in the middle of his living room. On opposite sides of him, Bug and Maggie each take a mouthful of pant leg and spread his legs akimbo, and Reggie goes to town on his crotch. And to add insult to injury, Hunter lines his haunches up over Doug’s face and lets loose with his bowels.
It’s a nasty, violent, and funny sequence, and Josh Greenbaum credits dog trainer Mathilde de Cagny for figuring out how to get the dog playing Reggie to attack Will Forte’s penis. As the director noted, it was partially a matter of taking advantage of what Border Terriers are bred to do:
Mathilde [de Cagny], who was Reggie's trainer, figured out the best way to do it, which is she put a stuffy toy in Will Forte's crotch . She cut a hole in the sweatpants so that the dog could see it and she trained the dog to enjoy it. Now, terriers like to do that; terriers, that is what they're bred for, is to take a rat or a rodent and shake it to death. That is literally what they've been around for thousands of years that we've trained them to do. And so it's a very natural behavior that you can get out.
The action was trained in correspondence with a verbal command, and while Josh Greenbaum couldn’t remember exactly what was said to get the dog to jump at Will Forte’s groin, he recalled having a moment of pondering his career when he heard what the trainers said to get the animal actors to hump. Greenbaum continued,
We were on set and I called action and she called... I can't remember what the call was for that . I wish I did. It probably had a very funny term, 'cause all the terms... When bug has to hump things, the term was 'Humpty Humpty Humpty Hump,’ , which is, I was on my own set being like, 'What have I done with my life? How did I get here?' But very funny.
Clearly Josh Greenbaum knew it was funny, but he got immediate affirmation from his crew on set as well. Laughs were evidently erupting all around set as people from different departments watched the carnage and appreciating the “saint-“ like qualities of Will Forte (who didn’t abandon his responsibilities and let a stunt actor have all the fun). Said the director,
That scene I remember was so fun on set because when the dog was going crazy on Will Forte's crotch – who laid on the ground for four hours for this one shot, he's a saint – I could hear all of the crew dying laughing. People way off I didn't even know had video feeds were dying laughing. It was a couple days I think to shoot that whole sequence, but really, really fun, and took a lot of work from all different departments – but ultimately, you know, fell on the on the crotch of Will Forte .
Or to sum it up briefly: it’s movie magic.
Featuring a stellar voice cast, Strays is now playing in theaters everywhere, and for a look ahead at all of the films set to be released between now and the end of the year, head over to our 2023 Movie Release Calendar.
