On the night of Monday, February 10th, many members of the cast of Zootopia 2, along with Directors Byron Howard and Jared Bush and a few other voice actor friends, gathered at the Wallis Theater in Los Angeles to do a Live Reading of Zootopia 2! For those unfamiliar with Live Readings, the format is fairly self explanatory. A small cast of actors, usually made of members of the original cast, voice actors, or others, will read the script for a movie from start to finish, each playing their assigned (often multiple) roles to the best of their abilities, and with varying degrees of familiarity with the source material. There will also be others reading out the scene information, action/description, and so on- the parts of a script that aren’t dialogue. It’s an exercise that is both fun to participate in as well as watch, especially when the selected actors are such powerhouses!
The cast this evening included:
Ginnifer Goodwin as Judy Hopps
Alex Edelman as Nick Wilde
Asif Ali as Gary De’Snake and various other roles
Patrick Warburton as Mayor Winddancer, Officers Bloats and Higgins, Judith Big, and various other roles
Alan Tudyk as Duke Weaselton, Captain Hogbottom, Bonnie Hopps, Dawn Bellwether, and various other roles
Keith David as Milton Lynxley, Inspector Snootley, and various other roles
Nate Torrence as Clawhauser, the newscasters, and various other roles
Josh Dallas as the Angry Pig, Kitty Lynxley, and various other roles
Yvette Nicole Brown as the Bearoness, Chief Bogo, and various other roles
Nicole Byer as Nibbles Maplestick, the Zebros, and various other roles
Sam Richardson as Pawbert Lynxley and verious other roles
Byron Howard as Berthold Hufschmerz and action/description (middle sections)
Jared Bush as Jürgen Ziegenkäse and action/description (first and last sections)
As they read the script (which is the official final draft we saw published a few weeks ago) a screenshot of the movie would show the scene being acted on the projector. That way it was a little easier for the audience to follow along.
The actors really got into their characters, especially the returning cast.
Ginnifer Goodwin continued her personal tradition of wearing bunny ears while playing Judy Hopps, though the other actors also had headbands to indicate who they were playing too!
Patrick Warburton though… he went all out. While playing Mayor Winddancer, he had a full wig mane of glorious blond hair, and a stagehand with a fan to ensure it was always blowing majestically in the wind.
And as much fun as the cast was having, that’s nothing on the directors. They got so caught up in the fun of it all that they forgot that Jared had left a few… surprises… in the script’s descriptions.
According to ACRacebest, who attended the event,
“They read the screenplay that’s released, which made for some pretty hilarious moments when they missed ‘cleaning up the cussing’. This line in particular…
“… Hearing Byron say ‘runs across the fucking water to safety!’ I turned to [my wife] like ‘did he just say that? lmao idk what this was supposed to be rated… but the rest of it was cleaned up.”
Hey, that’s live performance for you! Everyone had a good laugh at that, and the show continued on.
For one-off characters who only had a single line (for example, the news reporter who asked Milton when he was going to start the tundratown expansion), they had some audience members come up and read the lines. This was somewhat effective, as is to be expected from selecting randomly from an audience, with some good and some less so, but it was great all the same.
Furthermore, when it came time for Zoo, the band (which had been providing background music) joined a singer dressed as Gazelle in the spotlight and played it live!
A few things that had been confusing some people were cleared up as well. For example, there was a part of the screenplay where, upon seeing Judy in her gala dress, Jared put in the description:
According to Race, “I think some people thought it was a mean ‘what the hell?’… Now that I got to hear Jared deliver that line, it’s an intrigued, warmly surprised, ‘I never thought I’d see this tomgirl in a dress’ what the hell.”
When asked about other standout moments, Race said:
“The most powerful moment of the show was seeing Ginnifer Goodwin actually crying during the emotional scenes. Quietly wiping away tears as the Weather Wall scenes rolled on. Her connection to Judy means something, it absolutely struck my heart. As someone whose all time favorite character is Judy Hopps, it made me happy that SHE is our Judy Hopps. The emotion invested into her character was on display for the audience in attendance, and we’re all lucky for it.”
After the show, the actors were shown offstage, and while Jared tried to give some autographs (the audience were given copies of the Zootopia 2 Lithograph as a commemorative gift), soon he was called away as well. The show went longer than anticipated, over 2 full hours into the evening, but a wonderful time was had by all!
The mammals of #Zootopia are here. 🐰🦊🐍
Directors Jared Bush and Byron Howard, and the #FiPresents Live Read cast Ginnifer Goodwin, Yvette Nicole Brown, Nicole Byer, Josh Dallas, Sam Richardson, Nate Torrence, Alan Tudyk, Patrick Warburton, Keith David, Alex Edelman and Asif… pic.twitter.com/zlSB3Q7uw9
— Film Independent (@filmindependent) February 10, 2026
Before we wrap up this report, I want to give a special thanks to ACRaceBest for attending and sharing his experience with us, and to Film Independent for hosting the event in the first place! I sincerely hope that other events like it take place in other locations so more people can attend, but for a one-night-only show, this was a smashing success
I knew this event would be awesome, thanks for the report! I also always knew that the “What the hell?” was in the “Wowee, zowee,” “Hubba,hubba” sense! The music playing right then further supports this 😉 <3
Please tell me this was recorded in some way so we can see; this sounds too fun for it not to have been.
Film Independent apparently recorded it, but as of right now they haven’t posted it anywhere. Hopefully they do soon!