Look who’s talking!

AS hard as it is to write the software to make computer-animated movies, it’s almost more challenging to cast their voice actors. These performers may only work for a few days, but their contributions are incalculable. Get it right, and you’ve picked Ellen DeGeneres for “Finding Nemo,” Eddie Murphy in “Shrek,” or even Sacha Baron Cohen in “Madagascar.” Get it wrong, and you’re listening to James Belushi in “The Wild.”

To select the voice actors for DreamWorks’ “Over the Hedge,” a comedy about an eccentric band of animals wrestling with encroaching suburbia, directors Tim Johnson and Karey Kirkpatrick looked in different directions. Garry Shandling was cast as the film’s phobic turtle Verne; Steve Carell as the agitated squirrel Hammy; Bruce Willis as a scheming raccoon named RJ; William Shatner as the faint-hearted opossum Ozzie; Avril Lavigne as Ozzie’s teen-possum daughter, Heather; Wanda Sykes as a sulky skunk; and Allison Janney as the tightly wound homeowner who’s making all their lives even more miserable.

The actors might be smiling now, but the box office pressure is great: Even though they target different audiences, “Hedge” goes up against “The Da Vinci Code” on May 19.

-- John Horn