Despicable Me 3 sees the introduction of a major new character: Gru’s twin brother Dru. That’s right. In a busy plot that revolves around Gru raising a family, losing his job, fighting an evil former 80s TV star with a grudge and being abandoned by the Minions, Gru discovers his life isn’t what he thought it was. He’s got a secret twin brother.
Separated at birth, Gru was raised by his mother, while Dru was raised by his father – and Steve Carell provides the voice for both. And while they share similarities, at the same time they’re very different – in both voice and character.
As characters, Gru is intent on fighting the good fight while Dru is drawn to their father’s calling to villainy. Dru wants Gru to teach him everything he knows. Dru also ended up with Gru’s share of the hair – Gru is bald as a coot, while Dru has a flowing blond mane.
Gru and Dru share a lot of screen time in Despicable Me 3, and there’s often a lot of interplay between the two – but how did Carell go about recording the voices?
Carell told FANDOM: “I did them separately. I would do Gru first and then I would do Dru [in] the second half just to try to distinguish one from the other”.
There’s even a bit in the film where each impersonates the other, which must have been tricky.
“It was a little weird; that was a little strange,” says Carell.
Is Despicable Me 4 Happening?
On the subject of whether there’s going to be a Despicable Me 4, quite apart from Minions spin-offs, both Carell and his co-star Kristen Wiig are enthusiastic about the idea.
Kristen says, “We don’t know yet. I hope so, that would be amazing.”
Steve, meanwhile has this to say: “I hope people like this one enough to warrant a fourth, there’s a lot going on in this movie. There’s a new villain who’s hysterical. The Minions have gone off. They’ve decided they’re going to try to explore something new, and Lucy is dealing with all this stuff with being a new mom and Gru is fired and he finds out he has a brother. There are a lot of different story threads in this one but I think it definitely leaves it open for a fourth, which will be great.”
Watch Steve Carell doing the voices of Gru and Dru for FANDOM in the video above.
Despicable Me 3 is out in the UK and US on June 30.