The Minions are back in the spotlight with โMinions & Monsters,โ the seventh film in the โDespicable Meโ franchise.
This time, James, a creative Minion with aspirations of becoming a filmmaker, teams up with friends Henry and Ed to make a monster movie. And as always, the comical yellow capsule-sized henchmen do what they do best: create havoc and bring the laughs.
As a new โMinionsโ film is released, it brings up the question: Are there female minions? โMinions & Monstersโ director Pierre Coffin shares his answer.
โLast time I answered, I got into a lot of trouble,โ Coffin, who is also the voice behind the Minions, jokes to TODAY.com.
In 2015, Coffin told The Wrap that because of their lack of intelligence, he โcouldnโt imagineโ there being female Minions.
โWe talk about it all the time and I donโt know if weโre going to have an answer to that,โ Coffin tells TODAY.com. โThereโs no reason why itโs just males.โ
Coffin co-created Minions along with character designer Eric Guillon and director Chris Renaud for 2010โs โDespicable Me.โ The trio have since worked on the rest of the films.
โAs we were making the first one, at some point we said to Steve Carell, voicing Gru, โOh, just say hi to these guys as if theyโre all the same, but you recognize each individual. So if you could just name them, like, Hey, Joe. Hey, Tim…,โ he says, adding they preferred โvery simpleโ names. โAnd so he came up with all that. He could have at that moment said, like, โHey, Kelly. Hey, Clara.โ You know, โLynn, Liz.โโ
The creative team โdidnโt questionโ the names at the moment, he says. โSo it was… a decade later that someone came up with that question and said, โI donโt have an answer to that.โโ
Coffin, however, adds, โbut there might be in the future, though. Who knows?โ
The director does say that he and the creative team have always envisioned the Minions as kids.
โIt works magically,โ he says. โItโs just them like fooling around, getting mad at each other, but two seconds later theyโre friends again. Itโs all about the expressive connection and how physical they are with each other. Theyโre kids.โ