About The Cast of Dr. Seuss' The Lorax

DANNY DeVITO (The Lorax) is one of the entertainment industry’s most versatile players, exvcelling as an actor, producer and director.

He wrote, directed and produced several short films in his early Hollywood years before emerging as a featurelength filmmaker. Dark comedic themes characterize his trademark films, including The Ratings Game, Throw Momma From the Train, The War of the Roses, Hoffa, Death to Smoochy and Matilda.

In April, DeVito will co-star in the London stage revival of Neil Simon’s comedy The Sunshine Boys, which follows an aging comedy duo as they reunite after years of animosity to perform one last time.

DeVito recently wrapped production on his first horror feature, The November Project, which he directed and produced.

This fall, DeVito returns as Frank Reynolds in the eighth season of FX’s acclaimed cult comedy It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In 2009, he and the rest of the ensemble cast completed a sold-out (within minutes) nationwide tour featuring a live stage adaptation of The Nightman Cometh. In 2010, they joined forces with Sarah Silverman and the cast of Family Guy for a benefit concert that raised more than $300,000 for Haiti earthquake victims.

DeVito runs TheBloodFactory.com, an online collaboration, with screenwriter John Albo, of horror shorts he affectionately refers to as “splatter cuts.” He is also the principal of Jersey Films 2nd Avenue, a successor company of Jersey Films. Jersey Films has produced more than 20 motion pictures, including Freedom Writers, Be Cool, Garden State, Along Came Polly, Man on the Moon, Pulp Fiction, Out of Sight, Get Shorty, Hoffa, Matilda, Living Out Loud and Erin Brockovich (which was nominated for an Academy Award®).

Two films co-starring DeVito won the Academy Award® for Best Picture (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Terms of Endearment), but it was the part of Louie De Palma on the television show Taxi that propelled him to national prominence. He won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for the role. In a 1999 readers’ poll conducted by TV Guide, DeVito’s Louie De Palma was voted No. 1 among “TV’s 50 Greatest Characters Ever.”

Apart from his work with Jersey Films, DeVito has starred in such films as Junior, Batman Returns, Twins, Romancing the Stone, The Jewel of the Nile, Ruthless People, Tin Men, Anything Else, Big Fish, Renaissance Man, The Big Kahuna and Heist. He starred more recently in The Good Night, Deck the Halls, Relative Strangers, The Oh in Ohio, Be Cool, Nobel Son and Even Money.

DeVito attended Our Lady of Mount Carmel grammar school and Oratory Preparatory School in Summit, New Jersey, but appeared only once in a school play, as St. Francis of Assisi. After graduation, he pursued several odd jobs, always with the idea of acting in the back of his mind.

He finally entered the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. “They had fencing and a speech class,” he said mockingly, “so you don’t talk funny.”

Unable to get work, DeVito bought a round-trip ticket and headed to Hollywood. After years of unemployment, he returned to New York. He called an old friend and former American Academy professor who, coincidentally, had been seeking him out for a starring role in one of three one-act plays presented together under the title of The Man With the Flower in His Mouth.

DeVito was soon into big money ($60 a week), and other stage performances followed. Among his credits were Down the Morning Line, The Line of Least Existence, The Shrinking Bride and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

In 1975, under a grant from the American Film Institute, DeVito and his wife, actress Rhea Perlman, wrote and produced Minestrone, which has been shown twice at the Cannes Film Festival and has been translated into five languages. They later wrote and produced a 16-millimeter black-and-white short subject, The Sound Sleeper, which won first prize at the Brooklyn Arts and Cultural Association competition.

DeVito carries his success well. Never forgetting that there were more difficult times, he maintains a healthy sense of perspective. As Taxi character Louie De Palma would say, “If you don’t do good today, you’ll be eatin’ dirt tomorrow.”

ED HELMS (The Once-ler) is best known for his scene-stealing roles on both the big and small screen. He will next be seen starring in the Duplass brothers’ Jeff Who Lives at Home, opposite Jason Segel and Susan Sarandon. The film follows slacker Jeff (Segel), who is dispatched from his basement room on an errand for his mother (Sarandon) and discovers his destiny when he spends the day with his brother (Helms), as he tracks his possibly adulterous wife. The film is slated for release by Paramount Pictures on March 16, 2012.

More recently, Helms starred opposite Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifianakis in The Hangover Part II, the sequel to Todd Phillips’ critical and commercial success The Hangover, which drew a worldwide gross of more than $467 million and won the 2010 Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture—Musical or Comedy.

Helms currently stars in the scene-stealing role of Andy Bernard in the seventh season of NBC’s hit comedy The Office. His other television credits include a four-year stint as a senior correspondent and writer on the Emmy Award-winning The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, Comedy Central’s Premium Blend and FOX’s Arrested Development.

His previous film credits include Miguel Arteta’s Cedar Rapids; Shawn Levy’s Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian; The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard; Semi-Pro; Knocked Up; Meet Dave; Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay; Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story; and Evan Almighty.

Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Helms headed to New York City to pursue comedy shortly after attending Oberlin College in Ohio. He now resides in Los Angeles and plays a mean banjo.

Nurturing an impressive body of work that encompasses film and television, ZAC EFRON (Ted) is one of Hollywood’s most promising talents as his career continues to evolve with exciting and challenging projects. Efron received ShoWest’s Breakthrough Performer of the Year Award; MTV Movie Awards for Breakthrough Performance (2008) and Best Male Performance (2009); and multiple Teen Choice and Kids’ Choice awards.

Efron recently wrapped production on the Warner Bros.’ film The Lucky One. A film adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks novel, The Lucky One tells the story of a marine who returns to North Carolina after serving in Iraq and searches for the unknown woman he believes was his good luck charm during the war. It was directed by Scott Hicks and is slated for release in April 2012. He also recently finished working on The Paperboy, a film based on a reporter who returns to his hometown in Florida to investigate a death-row inmate case. Efron stars in the film alongside Nicole Kidman, John Cusack and Matthew McConaughey.

More recently, Efron starred in Warner Bros.’ New Year’s Eve. The film, directed by Garry Marshall, tracks the lives of several couples and singles whose lives intertwine over the course of New Year’s Eve. Efron also starred in Universal Pictures’ Charlie St. Cloud, based on Ben Sherwood’s acclaimed novel. The film is a romantic drama in which Efron stars as a young man who survives an accident that lets him see the world in a unique way.

In 2009, Efron starred in two very different films. He starred in the Warner Bros. film 17 Again, a Biglike dramedy in which a 36-year-old man, in need of a major life do-over, wakes up in the body of a highschool senior. The film opened No. 1 at the box office and also stars Matthew Perry and Leslie Mann. Efron also starred in the Richard Linklater film Me and Orson Welles, an adaptation of the period coming-of-age novel by Robert Kaplow. Efron portrays a high-school student who happens upon the yet-to-open Mercury Theatre and is then noticed by Orson Welles. He stars in the film alongside Ben Chaplin and Claire Danes, and it debuted to rave reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Efron starred in the Disney feature film High School Musical 3: Senior Year, the third installment of the extremely successful High School Musical franchise. HSM3 set a box-office record with the highest-grossing opening-weekend total for a musical. He also starred alongside an all-star cast in the box-office smash summer film Hairspray, a film about an all-white American Bandstand-style television show that gets a soul infusion. The film won the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Acting Ensemble and the cast was also nominated for Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards for its impressive work on the film.

Segueing effortlessly between the big and small screens, Efron quickly garnered attention and became the breakout star of the Emmy Award-winning Disney Channel phenomenon High School Musical. He reprised his role as Troy Bolton, head of the basketball team, in High School Musical 2, which broke cable-TV records by garnering 17.5 million viewers. His other television credits include a recurring role on The WB series Summerland and guest-starring roles on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, ER, The Guardian and CSI: Miami.

Additionally, Efron starred on stage in the musical Gypsy and has appeared in productions of Peter Pan, Mame, Little Shop of Horrors and The Music Man.

A native of Northern California, Efron currently resides in Los Angeles. He recently started his own production shingle and has several feature film projects in development.

TAYLOR SWIFT (Audrey) is a four-time Grammy Award winner, Billboard’s 2011 Woman of the Year and the reigning American Music Awards Artist of the Year, as well as the Entertainer of the Year for both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music. Her “Speak Now” album has sold more than five million copies worldwide and she is the biggest-selling albums artist in any genre of music over the past 12 months.

Swift is the top-selling digital artist in music history, Billboard’s current Top 200 Albums Artist (all genres) and Entertainment Weekly’s 2010 Entertainer of the Year. Her singles have topped both the country and pop radio charts and have sold more albums than any other artist in any genre of music last year. With 1,046,718 copies sold in the U.S. in the first week of release, her “Speak Now” album scored Nielsen SoundScan’s biggest single-week sales total since 2005 and is the biggest-debuting country studio album in history. With the release of “Speak Now,” Swift made history on the Billboard Hot 100, charting a record-breaking 11 songs from one album in a single week. Swift, who writes all of her own songs, has career-record sales now in excess of 20 million albums and 40 million song downloads. Her “Fearless” album was 2009’s top-selling CD, and she was the top-selling artist of 2008.

At the age of 20, Swift became the youngest artist in history to win the music industry’s highest honor: the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Also at the 2010 Grammys, she took home the awards for Country Album of the Year, Best Country Song and Best Country Female Vocal Performance. Her six-time-platinum “Fearless” album is the most awarded album in country music history.

In 2009, she was named Artist of the Year at the American Music Awards (for the first time) and also became the youngest artist in the 43-year history of the Country Music Association to be awarded country music’s top prize when she took home the CMA Award for Entertainer of the Year. Swift is one of only two female artists in history to win country music’s highest honor twice. She currently holds the Billboard all-genre records for the longest-charting album of this century, for the most top-20 debuts in a calendar year and for the largest overall airplay audience for a country-based act.

Swift is on tour in support of “Speak Now,” having played 98 shows in 17 countries in 2011, with the tour continuing in Australia and New Zealand in 2012. Her 15-month, 107-date “Fearless” 2009/2010 tour sold out arenas and stadiums in 88 cities in five countries spanning four continents.

Swift released her first-ever concert CD and DVD set, “Speak Now World Tour – Live,” on November 21 of last year.

ROB RIGGLE (Mr. O’Hare) has steadily climbed into prominence as a soughtafter comic actor both in films and on television. He was recently named to star in the CBS comedy series Home Game, produced by Mark Wahlberg, and will be seen in Columbia Pictures’ 21 Jump Street and Universal Pictures’ Big Miracle.

The Louisville, Kentucky, native was raised in Overland Park, Kansas, and attended the University of Kansas. He went on to earn a master’s degree from Webster University before entering the United States Marine Corps in 1990 with a plan to become a pilot.

After serving in areas such as Liberia and Afghanistan, he remained in the United States Marine Corps Reserve as a public affairs officer based in New York City at the rank of lieutenant colonel. In New York, he became interested in acting and joined the comedy improvisation group Respecto Montalban.

After serving in areas such as Liberia and Afghanistan, he remained in the United States Marine Corps Reserve as a public affairs officer based in New York City at the rank of lieutenant colonel. In New York, he became interested in acting and joined the comedy improvisation group Respecto Montalban.

He has been a familiar face on television, appearing as a regular on Saturday Night Live in 2004, as well as The Daily Show With Jon Stewart between 2006 and 2010. He also has appeared in such series as Human Giant, Funny or Die Presents…, Gary Unmarried and Chuck and has voiced several characters on American Dad!.

A longtime fixture on the downtown and Brooklyn alt-comedy scenes, JENNY SLATE (Ted’s Mom) is a durable stand-up comedienne, with long stands at the Upright Citizens Brigade UCB Theatre, the Rififi Theatre, Comix, NYC’S Pianos and The Peoples Improv Theater. In 2009, Slate presented her one-lady show, Jenny Slate: Dead Millionaire, to sold-out audiences in New York and Los Angeles, and revived it at the UCB in 2010.

Last season, Slate joined the Saturday Night Live (SNL) cast as a featured performer and created memorable characters including Tina Tina, the doorbell saleslady. Before joining SNL, Slate was cast in the HBO comedy series Bored to Death as Stella, Jason Schwartzman’s stoner girlfriend. Most recently, Slate shot a supporting role in 20th Century Fox’s This Means War, directed by McG, and a leading role in 20th Century Fox’s Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked. Additionally, Slate is developing Marcel the Shell With Shoes On into a book series and a television show.




BETTY WHITE (Grammy Norma) was born on January 17 in Oak Park, Illinois, and moved to Los Angeles with her parents when she was two years old. She graduated from Beverly Hills High School.

White played small parts on radio, which led into television at its very inception on the West Coast (1949). Her first big break was joining Al Jarvis on a local television show that broadcast live five and a half hours a day, six days a week. After two years, she inherited the show for an additional two years.

In partnership with producer Don Fedderson and writer George Tibbles, White formed her own production company and produced her first comedy series, Life With Elizabeth, for which she received her first Emmy in 1952; The Betty White Show, an NBC daily talk/variety show; and the network situation comedy Date With the Angels. She appeared frequently on major variety and game shows and was a recurring regular with Jack Paar (more than 70 appearances), Merv Griffin and Johnny Carson, appearing in many Mighty Carson Art Players skits. She also subbed as host on all three shows and was a regular with Vicki Lawrence on Mama’s Family as Ellen Harper Jackson, a role she created with the rest of the company on The Carol Burnett Show.

White’s first appearance on Mary Tyler Moore in the show’s fourth season led to her becoming a recurring cast member. She received two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Continuing Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her portrayal of Sue Ann Nivens, the “Happy Homemaker,” in 1975 and 1976.

White hosted the New Year’s Day Tournament of Roses Parade on network television for 20 years and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for 10 years.

From 1970 to 1971, White created, wrote and hosted her syndicated television animal series, The Pet Set. In 1976, she was awarded the Pacific Pioneers in Broadcasting’s Golden IKE Award and the Genii Award from American Women in Radio & Television. She received her fourth Emmy for Outstanding Host or Hostess in a Game or Audience Participation Show for Just Men!. She was nominated seven times for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for The Golden Girls, and won an Emmy in the show’s first season, in 1985. She then appeared in the spin-off, The Golden Palace, for one season. In 1996, she received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her role on The John Larroquette Show.

In 1997, she received an Emmy nomination for her gueststarring role on Suddenly Susan. In 1987, the American Comedy Awards gave her the award for Funniest Female Performer in a TV Series (Leading Role) Network, Cable or Syndication for The Golden Girls, and in 1990, she received its Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy. In 1995, she was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. In 2000, she received the American Comedy Award for the Funniest Female Guest Appearance in a TV Series for her role on Ally McBeal, and in 2002, she made recurring appearances on That ’70s Show.

In 2007, White received an honorary Doctor of Humane Veterinary Sciences degree from Western University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. In August 2009, the Television Critics Association honored her with its Career Achievement Award. In September 2009, she received a Disney Legends Award, and in October 2009, she was honored by the Jane Goodall Institute with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 2010, White charmed sports fans with her role in a top-rated Snickers Super Bowl commercial. In January 2010, she received the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Life Achievement Award, and in April 2010, the American Women in Radio & Television honored her with a Lifetime Achievement Award in Acting. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) honored her with the Britannia Award for Excellence in Comedy. She was inducted into the California Hall of Fame in December, and was nominated for two People’s Choice Awards. She was also voted AP’s Entertainer of the Year in 2010.

In January 2011, White received her first SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series for the snarky but lovable caretaker on the TV Land series Hot in Cleveland, which also stars Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves and Wendie Malick. Also in 2011, she received an Emmy nomination for her role on the show and was given Broadcasting & Cable’s Lifetime Achievement Award in addition to being inducted into its Hall of Fame.

White had a recurring role on Boston Legal, as Catherine Piper, and a recurring role as Ann Douglas on the daytime drama The Bold and the Beautiful. On May 8, 2010, she hosted Saturday Night Live. The episode was one of the highest-rated in the show’s history, and White won an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series, bringing her Emmy award total to seven. She guest-starred on the season finale of The Middle and on the NBC series Community. She also hosts and executive produces NBC’s hidden-camera comedy show Off Their Rockers.

A trustee of the Morris Animal Foundation since 1971, White serves as president emerita. In 1987, she received the American Veterinary Medical Association’s Humane Award. She has recently been named chairwoman of the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association, having served on the board since 1974 and as a zoo commissioner for eight years. In February 2006, she was honored by the City of Los Angeles at the Los Angeles Zoo as Ambassador to the Animals for her lifelong work for animal welfare. A bronze plaque was placed next to the zoo’s gorilla exhibit. She was also recently inducted as an honorary United States forest ranger.

White has appeared in several movies for television, including Chance of a Lifetime, with Leslie Nielsen; The Retrievers, for Animal Planet; Stealing Christmas, with Tony Danza; and Annie’s Point, for the Hallmark Channel. She recently starred in the CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame movie The Lost Valentine, which aired in January 2011.

Her endeavors on the big screen include Hard Rain, with Morgan Freeman and Christian Slater; Dennis the Menace Strikes Again!, playing Martha Wilson, opposite Don Rickles; writer David E. Kelley’s Lake Placid; Rob Reiner’s The Story of Us; Bringing Down the House, with Steve Martin and Queen Latifah; and The Proposal, with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. She also starred in Disney’s You Again, with Jamie Lee Curtis and Sigourney Weaver, which was released in September 2010.

She is the author of seven books, including “Betty White’s Pet-Love”; “Betty White in Person”; “The Leading Lady: Dinah’s Story,” co-authored with Tom Sullivan; “Here We Go Again: My Life in Television,” which was reissued in October 2010; and “Together: A Story of Shared Vision,” also co-authored with Tom Sullivan. On May 3, 2011, her book “If You Ask Me: (And of Course You Won’t)” was released, and “Betty & Friends: My Life at the Zoo” was released in November 2011.

White was married for 18 years to Allen Ludden, host of television’s Password, until his death in 1981. She lives in Brentwood, California, with her golden retriever, Pontiac.

Source: The Lorax Movie | Official Site for the The Lorax Film