How did that cute little piglet smile, talk and laugh his way through the hit summer movie Babe? Turns out he had a lot of help. Animal trainer Karl Lewis Miller taught 60 pigs to ham it up for the movie. As soon as one pig got too big for the part, a newly trained piglet replaced him.
"You don't train a pig like you do a dog," says Miller. "You can train pigs to sit, but not by command." The pigs got treats when they made the right moves. Computer graphics and robotic animal puppets helped create the illusion that the animals were speaking. But director Chris Noonan used the real animals whenever he could. Each pig wore a tiny wig and had his eyelashes darkened.
Miller admired the piglets' "magical presence" on film. And they didn't even flinch when the film crew ate bacon for breakfast!