BELLINGHAM — Hank Hoey set out for New York with a contract already signed. He was going to act in his first major Hollywood movie, his big break.
But he soon found that the life of a professional actor, the life of an artist, can grow wearisome and lonely.
“He got depressed,” said Gr
etchen Hoey, who owns Hank, a 4-year-old basset hound. “He got moody. He got tired of performing and he would just tucker out, homesick.”
Earlier this year, Hank endured five long months of training and work to earn a small part in “The Smurfs,” which opened Friday in theaters around the country.
In the film, Hank plays Elway, a role based on a character from the original Smurfs cartoons.
Gretchen and her husband, Jeff, run a basset hound breeding business out of their house on the outskirts of Bellingham.
The producers of “The Smurfs” stumbled across their website, bellinghambassets.com, and were drawn to Hank’s caricatured features — his crooked, bowed legs, the sharp bump on top of his skull and his tricolor coat of fur.
They had to have him for the movie.
But Hank wasn’t for sale. He was the family pet, not even used for breeding.
After some prodding, however, the Hoeys agreed to lease him out for about $1,500. He left for California to train in January, and then flew to New York, where much of the movie was shot.
Four other hounds were on the set to play Elway, but Hank gets about 95 percent of the on-screen time, Gretchen Hoey said, and he did all his own stunts.
In one scene near the end of the movie, Hank tackles one of the bad guys, something his trainer couldn’t get his golden retrievers to do.
“People say bassets are hard to train, but they’re not,” Hoey said. “It’s a people problem, not a dog problem.”
Hank was trained by one of the best, Raymond Beal. He’s been the trainer and wrangler for dozens of major Hollywood movies, including “Marley and Me,” “101 Dalmatians” and “As Good as It Gets.”
The movie blends live action and animation, so in a scene where Hank chases one of the computer-animated Smurfs, he’s really just following orders from Beal.
Hank wore his own kind of makeup: His fur was painted so his spotting would match his doubles.
On the set, Hank worked alongside Neil Patrick Harris and Hank Azaria. Being around star power may have gone to his head, his owners said, because he’s become a constant attention-seeker.
“Before,” Hoey said, “he’d just run with the pack and was just a normal little dog, but now he kind of has entitlement issues.”
He also learned a few dozen new tricks. He barely knew any when he left in January.
To keep his movie star figure, Hank has a strict diet: two cups of dog food in the morning, two at night, and the occasional slice of cheese. But he would eat just about anything, because, as Hoey’s 18-year-old daughter Chelsea says, that’s what dogs do.
The Hoeys aren’t shopping Hank around for other work in show business, but if a sequel to “The Smurfs” gets made, they’ve given the studio permission to borrow him again.
Hank, along with his family, plan to attend an opening-night showing of “The Smurfs” at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Bellis Fair cinema.
It’ll be the first time the Hoeys have seen the movie, and they’re excited to see their dog on the silver screen.
“It’s like he’s eternal,” Chelsea said.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
