The Minions are back in the spotlight with “Minions & Monsters,” the seventh film in the “Despicable Me” 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 “Minions” film is released, it brings up the question: Are there female minions? “Minions & Monsters” director Pierre Coffin shares his answer.
“Last time I answered, I got into a lot of trouble,” 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 “couldn’t imagine” there being female Minions.
“We talk about it all the time and I don’t know if we’re going to have an answer to that,” Coffin tells TODAY.com. “There’s no reason why it’s just males.”
Coffin co-created Minions along with character designer Eric Guillon and director Chris Renaud for 2010’s “Despicable Me.” The trio have since worked on the rest of the films.
“As we were making the first one, at some point we said to Steve Carell, voicing Gru, ‘Oh, just say hi to these guys as if they’re all the same, but you recognize each individual. So if you could just name them, like, Hey, Joe. Hey, Tim…,” he says, adding they preferred “very simple” names. “And so he came up with all that. He could have at that moment said, like, ‘Hey, Kelly. Hey, Clara.’ You know, ‘Lynn, Liz.’”
The creative team “didn’t question” the names at the moment, he says. “So it was… a decade later that someone came up with that question and said, ‘I don’t have an answer to that.’”
Coffin, however, adds, “but there might be in the future, though. Who knows?”
The director does say that he and the creative team have always envisioned the Minions as kids.
“It works magically,” he says. “It’s just them like fooling around, getting mad at each other, but two seconds later they’re friends again. It’s all about the expressive connection and how physical they are with each other. They’re kids.”