We were thrilled to be in the presence of one of Hollywood’s character actor stalwarts, even if it was only for six sweet minutes. Michael Rooker exploded onto the scene way back in 1986 as the lead in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, where he encapsulated the banality of evil in his role as a garden variety murderer.

Though he’s been putting in the hard yards on TV’s The Waking Dead, it’s his role in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy saga for which he’s now known among fanboys far and wide.

As music is such an integral part of the Guardians universe, we decided to spring a little pop quiz on Mr Rooker, with all questions inspired by the Awesome Mix Vol 2 soundtrack.

Watch the video above and tweet your score to us @LWLies

Question 1: In your 1997 film Hercules, who lent his voice to the villain, Hades?

Ron Clements: James Woods, of course. Jack Nicholson was our first choice. We actually wrote the script with the idea that Jack might do the part. We had an earlier experience writing for Aladdin, the idea that Robin Williams would be the voice of the Genie even though we didn’t have any idea if he would do it or not. That worked out, but it didn’t work out so well with Jack.

John Musker: Jack Nicholson came in and we showed him the drawings. He brought his kids and his little daughter at the time was dressed as Snow White. The whole deal. We had a scene of animation from Hercules and showed him the drawings of Greece and said, ‘the one thing in Greece is you’re never far from water and all these rocks.’ He said, [adopts Jack Nicholson voice] ‘Rocks and water! That’s what it is!’. But ultimately they couldn’t make a deal with him because, back then, he had to have a merchandising deal and it wouldn’t work out.

RC: But it worked out because James Wood did a fantastic job. A little different than Jack Nicholson

JM: He took it in an entirely different direction.

RC: I think the movie’s shorter than it would’ve been, because Jack Nicholson talks slow and James Wood talks really fast.

JM: He was like, ‘c’mon, c’mon, c’mon’. He got the concept. Restless. Volatile. So we got that one right.

Score: 1 out of 8

Question 2: In The Princess and the Frog, the character of Dr Facilier is voiced by Keith David. What physical trait do they share?

RC: The space between the teeth.

JM: With Keith David that was a distinguishing characteristic of his. Actually we did it on Moana a little bit with Jemaine Clements.

RC: With Maui as well.

JM: Yeah, but that wasn’t based on Dwayne Johnson.

RC: But Facilier also has a gold tooth…

JM: …which Keith David does not have. And actually Facilier’s name used to be Duvalier in the very first draft. But then there was a real Dr Duvalier who was the dictator of Haiti. And so there was the question that it might send things in the wrong direction.

Score: 2 out of 8

Question 3: In which decade did Hans Christian Andersen publish his original story, ‘The Little Mermaid’, on which your 1989 film was based?

JM: I’m just remotely guessing… 1880s?

LWLies: Do you want to guess again…

JM: Is it far off?

LWLies: Wrong half of the century.

JM: Really? It was before 1850? I’ll say 1840.

LWLies: 1837.

JM: Really? Okay, that’s good to know. 1837, gotta remember that now.

RC: I’ll tell you a fun story related to Hans Christian Andersen. I pitched The Little Mermaid with a happy ending even though Andersen’s story doesn’t have a happy ending. She dies and in the end turns into sea foam. Not happy. It didn’t bother me too much, except when I was doing press in Copenhagen and people seemed to have a problem with changing the story. I started to feel a great deal of guilt about it, something I hadn’t felt before. But we had a premiere and the Queen of Denmark was in attendance and I apologised to her for changing the ending of Hans Christian Andersen’s story. She said, ‘Oh, he never knew how to end his stories anyway, so now it has a proper ending.’ So I felt much better.

Score: 2 out of 8

Question 4: Dwayne Johnson is among the cast of your new film Moana. As The Rock, what was the name of his trademark finishing move?

JM: The people’s… eyebrow? Let’s see… The people’s… leg lock? The people’s… elbow, forearm? I don’t know what it was, what was it?

LWLies: It was the people’s elbow.

JM: The people’s elbow! I think we get that.

Score: 3 out of 8

Question 5: Ron, you came up through Disney under the wing of the great Frank Thomas, one of the ‘Nine Old Men’ who cemented what we now refer to as the classic Disney style. Can you name the other eight?

JM: Easily, easily.

RC: I think I can. They were Les Clark, John Lounsbery, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Ward Kimble, Wolfgang Reitherman, Marc Davis, Eric Larson. Who did I not mention? Milt Kahl. I was an animation trainee when I worked with Frank. He taught me animation.

JM: He still has a little hand-drawn note from Frank on his bulletin board at work, of things to remember when doing animation.

RC: Frank was a perfectionist. He once said that of all the scenes that he animated – and he animated some of the greatest scenes in animation history – there are only a handful that he was really satisfied with.

JM: Frank was also known as ‘the velvet needle’ because he could give you a very sharp, pointed criticism but in a very delicate way.

RC: A very smart man. Very intelligent. He was also a musician. He played the piano in a jazz band called The Firehouse Five, which some other Disney artists were also in. They performed at Disneyland and other places. Chuck Jones called him the Laurence Olivier of animators. And he was a great actor so that was accurate in those terms.

JM: He wasn’t as good as some of the other artists, but his acting was the best.

RC: He did a breakthrough scene in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which was the scene of the dwarves mourning the death of Snow White. That was the first scene in animation that made people actually cry. No one ever thought animation had the power to do that before that. He also did the spaghetti sequence in Lady and the Tramp, which has become a sort of classic.

Score: 4 out of 8

Question 6: Related to Moana, what’s the name of the FW Murnau feature that was filmed on the island of Bora Bora?

JM: Sunrise? Oh wait, don’t tell me… Except that’s probably the only one I know. The island of something? Give me an initial?

LWLies: It begins with T, four letters.

JM: Tabu. I don’t think we saw that one. We did see the Robert Flaherty film also called Moana that was kind of a staged documentary done in 1926. That was shot in Samoa. He lived there for like a year. We saw that in Fiji. It’s a short, only like 20 minutes.

Score: 5 out of 8

Question 7: In Aladdin, what is the first thing that Robin Williams’ Genie says when he is released from the lamp?

JM: ‘Oi! Ten thousand years will give you such a crick in the neck!’

LWLies: Word for word.

JM: I think we actually wrote that one, except for the ‘oi!’ which Robin added.

Score: 6 out of 8

Question 8: In The Great Mouse Detective, there’s a scene set in a toy shop where you can see a toy of which famous Disney character?

Both together: Dumbo.

LWLies: You know your own films very well.

JM: Well, we worked on them a lot.

RC: But did you know that in Moana there are a number of different references to other Disney films that will be very difficult to spot.

JM: Easter eggs!

RC: This is a test for you. Did you see Olaf from Frozen in the movie?

JM: Sven you saw, that’s pretty obvious.

RC: He’s the reindeer from Frozen, you saw him, maybe. But maybe you missed him?

JM: But regardless of Sven, Olaf is also in the movie, harder to spot. Flounder is in the movie, very hard to spot. Baymax from Big Hero 6 is also in the movie, very hard to spot. Aladdin’s lamp is in the movie.

RC: They’re hidden.

JM: We’re in too but we’re very hard to spot. But we’ve been in all of the Disney movies since Aladdin. We are not in The Little Mermaid, but we are in Aladdin, pretty obviously, early on. Next time you watch Aladdin you can look for us. We were much younger then, but there’s a scene early on where Prince Ahmed is coming into town after Aladdin has just given some fruit to some hungry little kids in a back alley, and he comes over and he’s standing between a roly-poly bearded guy, and a taller, angular guy, and one of them says, “On his way to the palace I suppose?” And the other one says…

RC: “Another suitor for the princess!”

Final score: 7 out of 8

Moana is released in cinemas 2 December. Read the LWLies Recommends review.

A couple of months back we began hosting a regular movie pub quiz night at one of our favourite north London haunts, the June edition of which was themed around all things Disney to coincide with the release of our Tomorrowland A World Beyond issue.

With Disney/Pixar’s latest triumph, Inside Out, hitting cinemas 24 July, we took the opportunity to pose the Pixar round from said quiz to director Pete Docter and producer Jonas Rivera, offering them the chance to team up and pit their wits against our resident quizmaster. Here’s how they got on…

Question 1: Which household object is the focus of Pixar’s 1986 animated short film, Luxo Jr?

Pete Docter: A lamp.

Correct.

Jonas Rivera: Next!

Question 2: In Toy Story, on which foot does Woody have the word ‘Andy’ inscribed?

PD: It’s his right foot. Isn’t it?

JR: You animated him… I think it’s his left foot.

PD: Really? I’m trying to think of the scene where he’s under the crate and he lifts it up to look at the inscription…

JR: Maybe it’s just ’cause I’m left-handed and that’s how I think.

PD: If I were to act it out I’d say right, but it really depends on the camera. Let’s go right.

Final answer?

PD: Yep.

Correct. Question 3: In Finding Nemo, what is the name and address of the dentist who takes Nemo?

PD: Oh shoot… Wallaby Way?

JR: 32… 33…

PD: It’s definitely Wallaby Way. I can’t get the groove for where it goes. Can we pass?

Sure.

JR: Okay, let’s come back to that.

Question 4: Actor John Ratzenberger has been described as Pixar’s lucky charm, having voiced a character in every one of the studio’s feature films. But what was the name of his character in the long-running TV sitcom that made him famous?

PD: Cliff.

JR: Cliff Claven.

Correct. Easy one now… Question 5: Brad Bird directed The Incredibles and which other Pixar film?

PD: Ratatouille.

Correct. Question 6: In Monsters, Inc what is the name of the restaurant that Mike Wazowski takes his girlfriend Celia to for her birthday?

JR: Harryhausen’s. Named after…

PD: Ray, who we actually got to meet a couple of times.

JR: Oh yeah, what a cool guy.

Correct. Question 7: In A Bug’s Life, what is Francis the Ladybird’s circus act?

JR: Francis… Uhh. Like, a clown?

PD: There was Slim, Heimlich, Rosie…

JR: Let’s go clown.

Incorrect. Officially he’s a drag queen.

PD: Officially? According to who?

Our sources…

PD: Ha, well I guess he/she has an issue with that in the film so okay, I can accept that.

Question 8: Up was the second animated feature to receive a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards. What was the first film?

JR: Beauty and the Beast.

PD: And the third one was Toy Story 3.

JR: That’s right!

Correct. Question 9: What is the name of the classic Hollywood musical Wall-E is shown watching, and for an extra point, who directed it?

JR: My Fair Lady. No…

PD: [Starts whistling a tune]

JR: It’s not Hello, Dolly!

PD: [Still whistling]

JR: Okay, My Fair Lady… Right?

Incorrect. It was Hello, Dolly! Bonus point is still up for grabs…

PD: Oh man… I’m not going to be able to tell you that. Jonas?

JR: I got nothing…

It was Gene Kelly.

PD: Huh.

JR: Really? I knew he did Singin’ in the Rain… Here’s some trivia for you: when Andrew [Stanton] was cutting his reels [for Wall-E] I was the one that gave him the scratch track, because I had it from Disneyland, Main Street.

PD: There were a number of people who were willing to kill him because they couldn’t get that song out of their heads. It echoed through the halls for months.

Final question: Billy Crystal was offered the role of Mike in Monsters, Inc after previously turning down which iconic Pixar character?

PD: Buzz.

Correct.

PD: He’s thinks it’s Woody, I’ve heard him say that in a couple of interviews before.

Do you guys remember his audition?

PD: Oh sure. We were all excited because he has a very specific voice and sense of character and he nailed the audition but for whatever reason he decided not to go any further with it. He said later, when we worked with him on Monsters, ‘I had a very bad ex-agent,’ who I guess advised him to pass on it. But you know, in his defence it was the first one…

JR: It would have been weird to see how it would have turned out if he’d have said yes.

PD: In the long run I guess we would have just made Buzz a completely different character.

JR: Yeah, and Tim Allen playing him so deluded ended up working so well.

PD: The first session we had with him was actually kind of a disaster in my mind. I had a very specific idea of what I thought that character should be. I always imagined someone doing it with a Gary Owens/Space Ghost kinda superhero cadence, almost melodramatic. But Tim didn’t do that at all. I remember talking to Stanton about it and he’d already decided we were going to have to rewrite the character to fit what Tim was doing. In the end, of course, that made it way better.

JR: Yeah… yeah… I’m still upset about that Finding Nemo question.

PD: Oh right, um, Wallaby Way.

JR: You’re gonna have to help us out here…

The correct answer is P Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney.

JR: Of course!

PD: P Sherman! It’s funny, my only perception of Sydney was from that movie and I went there a couple of months ago and it’s very different.

JR: You only really see the dentist’s office in the movie though…

PD: That’s true. How’d we do?

Final score: 8/10