In the movie A Dog’s Journey, we meet CJ and Trent. Childhood friends who reconnect as adults, the film experiences their lives as 11 years to adulthood through the eyes of the dog Bailey. Bailey is a special dog as he gets to live the lives of multiple dogs..and through each life, he finds a way to reconnect with CJ.

Playing the teenage versions and the adult versions of CJ and Trent are actors Kathryn Prescott and Henry Lau. We got the chance to talk to them about the making of the film, learning to sing and play for the movie and more.

Screen Rant: Also no dogs in this interview. I’ve seen dogs in all the other interviews  and I’m not meeting one yet.

Screen Rant: I saw them.

Henry Lau: Well actually….(pretends there’s a dog behind the chair.)

Kathryn Prescott: There are puppies within the vicinity though.

Screen Rant: Yeah, kind of hard not to catch them in this press junket. First I wanna point out that was the goal to have more people crying in the audience for this film than in Endgame because I feel like that’s the edge this film is gonna have.

Kathryn Prescott: You might see one.

Henry Lau: Dogs everywhere.

Screen Rant: It gets pretty sad.

Kathryn Prescott: Is Endgame sad?

Screen Rant: It gets pretty emotional, so I think you guys are gonna beat them in the crying per capita.

Henry Lau: Have you watched it yet?

Kathryn Prescott: No I haven’t seen it…

Screen Rant: We go through quite a bit of your characters lives in this film, how did you find the way to track the performances when you were playing the performances as teenagers till when they were living in New York?

Kathryn Prescott: Oh WOW, that’s something.

Screen Rant: I definitely saw that. Ian to your teenage character, I saw the connection very quickly. “Oh yeah, there’s a little bit of similarities.” Did you (to Kathryn) do something very similar to Abby (Abby Ryder Fortson who plays CJ age 11) did you get to talk to her beforehand?

Henry Lau: Actually that was one of the challenges of this role because we played the characters when they were young in high school and then they get reunited years later when they’re much older. So what I actually did was met with Ian Chen (who plays Trent age 11), I gotta see how he acts. He’s adorable so I constantly try to talk to him to see how he acted, I tried to mimic that in the scenes when they were together in high school.

Screen Rant: So you took two months of what, guitar training and vocal training…

Kathryn Prescott: I met her beforehand. Yeah and was keeping in mind..as soon as we met I felt we actually had a lot in common in terms of who we were. That was lucky.

Screen Rant: …did you actually have any music experience before…?

Kathryn Prescott: I think it was two months, yeah…

Screen Rant: Zero?!

Kathryn Prescott: No.

Screen Rant: So you went from zero to like…

Screen Rant: No, you were great! Especially when we did hear you sing.

Henry Lau: Hard to believe, she was amazing.

Screen Rant: Did you give points (to Henry) I know you have some backstory…

Kathryn Prescott: Thank you.

Screen Rant: A little bit of history.

Kathryn Prescott: Some. Some.

Screen Rant: So I have one more thing…I’m gonna pitch you guys an idea. I talked about this to Gail and she seems into this…

Henry Lau: So I’m a musician, but it’s funny on this set SHE was the musician, but our trailers were right next to each other. And all I would hear is just guitar playing. I didn’t let her know but I could hear everything. But yeah, she just kept working on it and then one day I was like, I gotta go in there. Not that she was bad or anything! I thought she was amazing it’s just that one chord that she couldn’t get…

Kathryn Prescott: Messing up on the same chord.

Henry Lau: The same chord so I was…hmmm…give her some pointers. But she was amazing.

Screen Rant: Third film. A Dog’s Purpose. A Dog’s Journey. A Dog’s Vengeance. (Shows picture of fake poster)

Kathryn Prescott: Ok.

Henry Lau: What’s the idea?

Screen Rant: Bailey comes back as a cop dog.

Henry Lau: A Dog’s Vengeance?!

Kathryn Prescott: (Laughs)

Screen Rant: Yep.

Henry Lau: As a cop dog.

Kathryn Prescott: I think you got a real…idea going here.

Henry Lau: What she call it, Mission CJ.

Screen Rant: Oh yeah definitely.

Kathryn Prescott: I think what’s his name will be number one on that list. What’s the…ugh…the boyfriend…

Screen Rant: Oh he’s definitely on top of that list. Thank you so much.

Kathryn Prescott: Oh god I’m blanking out on his name, that’s really bad.

Henry Lau: Jake!

Kathryn Prescott: Jake’s character.

More: Gail Mancuso Interview for A Dog’s Journey

Kathryn Prescott: Thank you so much!

  • A Dog’s Journey Release Date: 2019-05-17