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‘It’s an embarrassment of pandas’: Jack Black and cast talk Kung Fu Panda 3

Comic actor voices Po in new episode of hit animated franchise, in which the lead character is joined for the first time on screen by a host of fellow pandas, and helped fellow cast members get into character for the film

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Mei Mei (voiced by Kate Hudson) makes eyes at Po (Jack Black) in a scene from Kung Fu Panda 3. Photos: Dreamworks

There’s an odd term used to describe a group of pandas.

“It’s an embarrassment of pandas, that’s the real word,” Jack Black explains. “Like a gaggle of geese, a school of fish, it’s an embarrassment of pandas. Everyone has to have their word.”

This is especially true in Kung Fu Panda 3, which sees Black’s martial arts panda star Po joined onscreen by fellow pandas for the first time in the hit animated film franchise. Brought up in a varied animal world (with a goose as a father), Po comes into contact with his panda kin.

Kate Hudson (voicing panda Mei Mei) and Bryan Cranston (as Po’s biological father Li) were just some of the actors drafted to portray an entire village of the adorable black and white creatures.

Black passed on his own panda knowledge to help his fellow actors get into the playful characters.

READ ALSO: With Kung Fu Panda 3, DreamWorks’ Chinese gamble looks like it’s starting to pay off

“We talked extensively on it, what it is to get inside the mind of a panda,” Black says. “First, you go to China and spend thousands of hours at a panda reserve. You watch their ways. You wear a panda suit, obviously.”

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