Sofia Vergara: I grew up with the 1980s TV cartoon series

As 3-D animated comedy 'The Smurfs' hits theatres this week, its cast reveals their fascination for the cute little creatures

It's a brilliantly sunny day in Cancun, Mexico, but things are quickly turning blue. There's an invasion by the Smurfs, the cute, miniature cobalt-coloured people from a magical village characters created by the Belgian animator Peyo in the 1950s that are now hitting theatres in a big screen version this Friday.

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Katy Perry in a bedazzled Smurfette dress with
Sofia Vergara at the New York premiere on Sunday

The 3-D animated comedy The Smurfs shows an adorable bunch of these little blue people lost in the concrete jungle of New York city, trying to escape from their nemesis, the wicked wizard Gargamel.

The film, part live action, part animation, boasts of a cast with household names like Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother), Sofia Vergara (Modern Family) and Hank Azaria (The Simpsons, The Bird Cage), apart from featuring voices like that of pop star Katy Perry for the only female Smurf, Smurfette.

"I had no idea that Peyo and the books existed, when I burned action figures as a child," says Harris, who plays an ad executive Patrick Winslow.

In the movie, Patrick helps the little creatures get back to their quaint village, even as the motley group of Clumsy, Grouchy, Gutsy, Brainy, Papa Smurf and Smurfette grapple with complexities of New York's Times Square, the subway system and hitching a ride on a yellow cab.

Sofia's Smurfy birthday
"I grew up with the 1980s TV cartoon series in Columbia," confesses a gorgeous Vergara, television's favourite Latino mom Gloria since Modern Family first aired in 2009. In real life, Vergara is mother to 19-year-old Manolo and says that her son was addicted to the Smurfs cartoons when he was little.
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A still from The Smurfs

Wearing a plunging blouse and impossibly high heels, Vergara looks every inch as glamorous as the cosmetics baroness Odile that she plays in the animated movie and is embarrassingly pleased as the cast and crew burst into singing 'Happy Smurf Day' and make her cut cake on her 39th birthday.

Humming the happy song
While Vergara confesses that she didn't have any scenes in the movie with the fictional Smurfs, both Harris and Azaria, who plays the comical evil wizard Gargamel, had a challenging time imagining the little creatures running all over them. "Sofia didn't have to interact with any of the Smurfs, lucky vixen," jokes Harris.
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In contrast, Azaria is quite the animation star, having voiced characters like Apu, Chief Wiggum and bartender Moe for 22 years in The Simpsons. "It's our job, you know, to imagine things are happening that aren't, and make them believable," he shrugs.

The trio, though, confess that they do find themselves crooning the almost annoyingly cheery 'La la Song' that is the Smurf theme. "I only hum it during sex," says Harris, grinning cheekily. The Smurfs 3D releases on July 29.