By Christina Radish

 In the Disney comedy Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Chloe (voiced by Drew Barrymore) is a diamond-clad, bootie-wearing Beverly Hills Chihuahua who enjoys her luxurious lifestyle so much, she hardly notices Papi (voiced by George Lopez), a Chihuahua who happens to be crazy for the pampered pooch. But, when Chloe gets lost in Mexico with only a streetwise German Shepherd (voiced by Andy Garcia) to help her find her way home, Papi heads south of the border, joining forces with three dogs (voiced by Placido Domingo, Luis Guzman and Eddie “Piolin” Sotelo), two humans (Piper Perabo and Manolo Cardona), a sly rat (voiced by Cheech Marin) and a nervous iguana (voiced by Paul Rodriguez), to rescue his true love.

Having to work alongside more than 200 dogs, both rescues and seasoned Hollywood dogs, from a variety of breeds, was not always the easiest of tasks for their human co-stars, including Piper Perabo (Coyote Ugly) and rising Latin American actor Manolo Cardona, who told MediaBlvd Magazine that they were just there to help the dogs look good.

MediaBlvd Magazine> Are you both dog people?

Piper Perabo> We are now!

Manolo Cardona> We bite sometimes, too.

MediaBlvd> Do either of you have pets?

Piper> I don’t have a pet. I don’t have enough time, with my traveling. As much as I would like one, I don’t really feel that it’s a responsible choice, at this point.

Manolo> Yeah, the same for me. I travel a lot too, so I don’t have the time.

MediaBlvd> What was the biggest surprise for you, working with canine actors?

Piper> I didn’t realize that there would be more than one dog, for each character. You think there’s going to be as many dogs as there are characters, but like with Angel, the dog that plays Chloe, she can’t do everything. So, there had to be the swimming Chloe and the jumping Chloe. There were five different Chloes, even though there was one main one. There were even more dogs than you’re seeing on screen, all there together.

MediaBlvd> Were there any particularly neurotic dogs, or ones that just wouldn’t leave you alone, or were they all pretty professional?

Piper> They were very professional and very highly trained.

Manolo> It’s nice to see these dogs work because they’re very special. They do things that you can’t imagine that a dog can do. It was great!

MediaBlvd> What were you most amazed that they could actually train the dogs to do?

Manolo> Papi’s jumps. That was amazing! You’d think he was jumping on a trampoline, but he wasn’t. He was jumping by himself. There were a lot of things, like when a dog had to open a door with his mouth. I don’t know how they train them to do something like that.

MediaBlvd> Were there any scenes with the dogs that just took forever to get done?

Piper> Getting Chloe to put the food in my shoes took a long time because Chihuahuas don’t pick things up with their mouth. You don’t throw balls to Chihuahuas because they don’t use their mouth to move things around. So, to get her to pick something up, carry it across the room and put it in the right place, took a very long time.

MediaBlvd> How much did the dogs affect shooting? Were the days longer than you expected? Were there lots of delays to get them ready?

Piper> It’s not a delay to get them ready, as much as it is to be patient to have the take good, when the dog gets it right.

Manolo> You have to be very patient. Working with dogs, you never know what they’re going to do. You have to be aware, and you have to work for them. They’re the main characters. We’re just there to support them.

MediaBlvd> Was there any bit of co-star envy, with the dogs being treated better than the human cast?

Manolo> It’s true!

Piper> On movie sets, they bring in the big tubes of air conditioning. Especially when we were shooting in all these different places, they would have to bring in these huge tubes. So, Frank, the pug who’s the famous dog from Men in Black, would crawl inside the air conditioning tube. And, one day, Jamie Lee Curtis crawled inside with Frank. It was much more comfortable in there.

MediaBlvd> Do you support this “No mas!” movement, to not use little dogs as accessories?

Manolo> I totally agree with that. I think everyone can do what they want with their lives, but especially these days, with how the world is, if you try to put a diamond collar on a dog, I think that says something very bad about the person.

Piper> I agree with Manolo. Obviously, everyone has a right to spend their money how they choose, and as long as you are intending to be loving, I can support it. Although, that wouldn’t be my choice for how to spend my money.        

MediaBlvd> Since all of the voices were done later, were you surprised with some of the lines the dogs said in the movie? Was there anything you didn’t expect?

Manolo> Definitely!

Piper> Yeah! It’s so bizarre to do the movie without all those voices. I know the dogs’ real personalities. I know how Rusco and Angel are. And then, when you see them and Drew Barrymore is in the scene, it’s shocking! Not that it’s not good, it’s just surprising.

MediaBlvd> Did you have any suggestions for your character that you spoke to the director about?

Piper> The character of Rachel could become insanely Paris Hilton-y and out-of-control, and Raja was really good at letting me try to keep the character a real person, within the shape of the role, although she was irresponsible. Honestly, she’s not bad or evil or malicious. She just is self-centered. To try to make that human, Raja was very good at letting me ground the character in a way that I felt made her believable, instead of just being a caricature of that.

Manolo> There was a lot of dialogue in between everybody -- the director and the actors -- but our mission in the movie was very clear. We were there to help these amazing dogs find a way to do what they need to do. Chloe needs to find herself, and Papi needs to find Chloe. We were there for them. It wasn’t that difficult, really. 

MediaBlvd> Do you see any similarities between your characters and the corresponding canine characters?

Manolo> I think, yes, in certain ways. Their souls are very similar. My first impression was to tell Raja, “I want to do Sam more like Papi, and be more like the kind of guy that says everything when he feels it.” But then, I realized that it didn’t work for the movie. If Sam was like Papi, Sam would tell Rachel how he feels about her. Papi is like that, but not Sam.

Piper> I think Rachel and Chloe are both very irresponsible and self-centered, and both need to be around people who are a little more caring about others. That’s what changes them.      

MediaBlvd> Are you like that at all, personally?

Piper> Sure. I think I always grow from being around people who are more generous than I am.

MediaBlvd> How was it to go to Puerto Vallarta and Mexico City for this?

Piper> I had never been to Mexico before, so I had a lot of preconceived ideas about what it would be like. And, it was even more beautiful than I imagined, especially some of the areas that you don’t see so much. We were in the jungles and the Sonoran desert, and it was absolutely beautiful. It was really fun!

Manolo> Yeah, it’s great. I used to live in Mexico for eight years, so I’m very close to the Mexican culture and I love it. It was a pleasure to go back with this movie and see different places.

MediaBlvd> Did the two of you meet early on, after you were cast, or did you just meet on the first day of filming?

Piper> We met before the first day of filming. We actually had rehearsals, down in Vallarta, before we began. So, we had four or five days of rehearsal together, and some time in between, while they were getting all the dogs down there, to just hang out and get to know each other.

MediaBlvd> Manolo, this is your first American film role. How was it for you to work with Eugenio Derbez, who is one of the largest stars in Mexico? Would you like to see your career follow a path similar to his, with diversification and cross-over?

Manolo> I’m very excited to do my first American movie. For it to be this movie is very special to me because it’s Disney. I’ve never done a movie for kids, which is very important for me because I have two nieces and one nephew that are my life. They fly in from Columbia to go with me to the premiere. Eugenio, for me, is a great actor and a great person. I like him a lot. But, I think we definitely have different careers. I respect him a lot, and I respect his career, but I think we’re going in different directions.

MediaBlvd> Would you like to do more American films?

Manolo> I would love to! I want to keep working here, for sure, but I don’t want to just try to do things here and not do things in Columbia, or wherever. I am searching for the characters that I want to play, or the movies that move me or have a message, like this one, which is an amazing movie with a beautiful message. That’s what I want to do.

MediaBlvd> Piper, how is it to go back to comedy, after all of the dramas you’ve been doing, in recent years?

Piper> Comedy makes me so nervous. It’s so difficult to do comedy on film. The timing is the most important thing, and on film it’s harder to control the timing. Also, working with dogs is like working with kids. In the Cheaper By The Dozen movies, I got to watch pros do it. You don’t know what they’re going to do, so you have to be really well-rehearsed to be able to let the scene evolve, depending on what the animal decides to do in each take. In a lot of ways, drama is much easier. I get really nervous for comedy.

MediaBlvd> What was your favorite part of the shoot?

Piper> Traveling through Mexico was really cool! I was with these actors who know the country very well, and they have a lot of friends there. I went to their homes and their families’ homes, and ate with their families. They knew the restaurants. They knew the secret beaches. At one point, we were doing the movie in Vallarta and there was a huge billboard that Placido Domingo (who voices Monte) was coming to sing in Guadalajara, and so, I said, “We have to go!” I love opera, and I was like, “This is my chance! Come on!” So, we convinced the producers to call Placido and get us invited, and Manolo and I, and one of our friends from the crew, all flew into Guadalajara to hear him sing. As if Mexico wasn’t beautiful enough, to see Placido Domingo sing in the great concert hall in Guadalajara was unbelievable. You could feel his voice hit you in the chest, it’s so big.

MediaBlvd> Are you and Placido on a first name basis now?

Piper> We talked to him afterwards, but I was so nervous!

Manolo> He’s a great guy. He’s amazing!

MediaBlvd> After having seen the movie, do you have favorite scenes, as viewers?

Manolo> One of my favorite scenes is when Piper barks. That’s very funny!

Piper> There were little moments in the movie, like the scene where you first see the dog fights and there’s the dog that’s praying. On the page, that doesn’t really ring out, but in a movie, somehow that works. That’s the amazing thing about comedy, to me. A lot of the small characters in this movie do that. They jump out at you. And, of course, I really loved the rat and the iguana too. It’s amazing how things come off the page.

Manolo> The actors who do the voices did such great work. It’s amazing!

MediaBlvd> Piper, how many takes did you have to do in the scene where you had to bark like a dog?

Piper> We did a lot of takes! I think that Raja just thought it was funny to watch me do it. I didn’t get the lines wrong, so I don’t know why we did so many takes, but we did a lot.

MediaBlvd> What will each of you be doing next?

Piper> I’ll be doing the new Neil LaBute play, called Reasons to Be Pretty, on Broadway. We’re going to open in late February. It’s being directed by Terry Kinney, and Pablo Schreiber, Alison Pill and Tommy Sadowski are doing the other three parts. I play a security guard in a factory outside Chicago.

Manolo> I have a production company in Columbia, and I’m producing two movies and one documentary right now. And, I think I’m going to act in a movie in Peru in November. It’s a hard role. That’s all I can say right now.