Curda, Moynihan the unseen stars of ‘Hoppers’

In this animated wonderland where animals’ woody habitat is threatened by a highway, Curda is 19-year-old Mabel Tanaka, a Japanese-American student who answers the call to save the habitat.

She does this by, yes, it’s weird, transferring her mind into a lifelike robotic beaver – that’s where the “hopping” comes in – to be better able to communicate with animals.

Moynihan is King George, a beaver leader who becomes Mabel’s ally.  Also: Jon Hamm as Beaverton Mayor Jerry Generazzo, eager to destroy the placid pond to install a freeway, Meryl Streep as the Insect Queen and Dave Franco as Titus, a butterfly and the Insect Queen’s son.

For Curda, at 28 a Disney veteran, this was one big hop. “I’ve done a couple little voiceover projects here and there but that was well over a decade ago and nowhere close to the scale of this.

“So it felt like just very new territory for me. But still so much fun.”

Who is Mabel exactly?

“Mabel is awesome,” she said in a joint phone interview. “Mabel is who I hope many young people are inspired by and want to be more like.

“She doesn’t,” Curda emphasized, “take any crap from anybody. She goes right after what she wants. She’s passionate. She’s loud. She’s a skateboarder and super cool.

“And she deals,” Curda added, “with a lot of big emotions which can get her into trouble. She does not make the right decision every time – that’s extremely reflective of being young. I hope they all feel seen when they watch her.”

As for King George, “He’s the gentleman,” Moynihan said, “and a little ‘round boy’ – and I love him! He learns from Mabel. Yes, he’s the king of his beaver lodge but he also has stuff to learn. And even though set in his ways, he can change.”

What they would like to see when kids exit the theater?

“After I went to see the first ‘Inside Out,’ I remember thinking –  for the next like week or two – about all of the emotions living inside my head. That’s not something that kids think about a lot,” Curda allowed.

“But when you see a movie and then get interested in it and start thinking about it, maybe that leads to something else.

“I’m in therapy now,” she confided, adding, “And I love it.”

“If all we accomplished,” Moynihan said, “is just making kids think about animals, about nature more, think about each other, that’ll be huge for me.”