The live-action Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise was a significant commercial success. However, actor David Cross, who played Ian Hawke in the first three films, has had a long-running feud with the production team. In a recent interview, he explained why he would never want to be part of another film associated with the franchise again.
David Cross alleges unprofessional behaviour from the Alvin and the Chipmunks crew
Appearing on The Daily Beast‘s Obsessed podcast, David Cross had some terse words to say about the franchise’s production crew. In the movies, he played an exploitative music executive and served as the main antagonist.
When asked if he would appear again in any forthcoming Chipmunk movies, he said, “I would never work with any of those people again for the rest of my life.”
“They were just so awful to me,” he further added.
Cross explained that while he was in London working on his show, The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, he was kept in limbo for months on whether he would be needed for the third film in the Chipmunks franchise.
“I was in pre-production for a show [Todd Margaret] … and I’m there with my now-wife and basically living there; we’re writing, we’re in pre-production—50–75 people depended upon me and this show going for their jobs. And we asked and asked and asked and asked,” he stated, adding that the response he kept getting was, “‘We don’t know, we’re not sure, could be, maybe, we don’t know.’”
However, right around Christmas, the actor was told that he had to fly out within days to shoot, which clashed with his ongoing production commitments. He doubled down by claiming the production team behaved in such a way intentionally, saying, “They were doing, like sh—- things on purpose.”
The bad blood between him and Alvin and the Chipmunks isn’t a recent phenomenon. Cross has previously admitted that he did those films largely for the paycheck. He also openly criticized his experience in Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, the third movie in the IP, calling it the “most unpleasant experience” he ever had in his entire professional life. He also claimed that production involved unnecessary and uncomfortable filming conditions on a cruise ship, while wearing a pelican costume.
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