James Corden has joked he “lived as a cat for a week” to prepare for his role in ‘Cats’.
The 41-year-old actor and talk show host is set to star in the upcoming film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical of the same name, and has said he prepared for the role by spending time in a “cat hotel”, where he would only drink “from a saucer”.
He teased: "I actually lived as a cat for a week. I went to a cat hotel and I lived amongst them. I only would take in all my fluids from a saucer. I would go out into the garden and bring back for my wife a dead bird or a dead mouse for her. I really immersed myself in it.”
James and his cast mates - including Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson, Jason Derulo, and Idris Elba - are all set to appear in a special ‘Cats’ themed sketch on his talk show, ‘The Late Late Show with James Corden’, this week, but James has said it’s unlikely they’ll ever get together to sing the musical’s hits in a ‘Carpool Karaoke’ segment.
He explained: "I don't think [we’ll do Carpool Karaoke]. It’s quite a difficult group of people to get together. We did just shoot a thing for our show today. Idris just literally landed, so it's me, Taylor, Rebel, Jason, Francesca [Hayward], Tom Hooper and Andrew Lloyd Webber going to cat school. But we literally just shot it. I have no idea if it's good or not, but it will be on ‘The Late Late Show’ this week."
The movie also stars Jennifer Hudson, Dame Judy Dench, and Sir Ian McKellen, and James still can’t believe he got to work with so many big names.
Speaking to E! News about the filming process, he said: "You're in a room that's the size of two football [fields], everything's scaled up so the doors are 15 ft high and the street lamps are 50 ft high. And you're with Idris and Rebel and Taylor, Judy Dench, Ian McKellen, and then someone goes, 'And now, be a cat.’