Moonfish’ Director and Stars Lucy Liu and Morgan Spector Break Down Their Black-and-White Animated Film About Isolated Astronauts And Why It’s an Allegory for ‘The Current Human Condition’

For Lucy Liu, who has voiced memorable characters in everything from “Kung Fu Panda” to “Strange World,” being part of the independently made, black-and-white animated film “Moonfish” was all about lending her name and support to first-time filmmaker Daniel Zvereff. Zvereff designed the 2D-animated film so that he could finish it completely on his own, if need be. Thankfully, as Zvereff worked over the course of nine months, he managed to bring on two animators, Hoss Wheeler and Devin Grover.

Liu adds, “It’s amazing what digital has done for the speed of animation but you can really feel the appreciation and the craftsmanship [here]. There is a tenderness and an imperfection that I appreciate.” Unlike Liu, Spector had never done an animated film before “Moonfish.” The trickiest part was getting into his character’s mental headspace as he goes “a little mad,” as Spector puts it. But they’ve also evolved as an underclass; they are the group of people without rights, assets or any real hope for the future,” Spector says of Zvereff’s worldbuilding.

Liu, of course, also voices the talking fish that accompanies the pair (which Zvereff likens to how miners brought along canaries to know when they had to leave) amidst the mundanity of the corporate tasks at hand. The corporation has merged with the computer in a sort of perfect authoritarian machine that uses human beings as fodder, basically,” Spector says. When you’re making something, you’re taking in all these feelings you’re happening and running them through this prism,” he says.