Nathan Greno Breaks Down the Heartbreaking Villain Twist in Netflix's 'Swapped'

Picture Credits: Netflix

In Skydance Animation’s Swapped, the lush ecosystem isn’t the only thing that transforms. Audiences spend the film believing the wolves are the primary antagonists, only to discover that the true villain is someone much closer to home.

This is the second part of our conversation with the director, best known for his work directing Disney’s Tangled. In discussing the massive six-year creative evolution, we discovered that the film originally looked vastly different. Initially pitched as a story about human teenagers with superpowers, the project was completely overhauled to better serve its core theme of empathy. To avoid the predictable tropes of traditional body-swap movies and keep the audience guessing, the team decided to utilize entirely original species, most notably the Pookoo. However, to keep this fantastical world emotionally grounded, they drew heavily on nature documentaries. Greno detailed how the animation team built a fully functioning, biologically plausible ecosystem, mapping out everything from river flow and sunlight to the lifecycle of the “Booglefish,” which was meticulously modeled after real-world salmon.

That’s in addition to covering aspects about animation, the body-swapping, and working with the stars of the movie, Michael B. Jordon and Juno Temple, the latter of whom we were privileged enough to speak to!