OSCAR is a fast-talking little fish whose big dreams have a habit of landing him in hot water. Lenny is a great white shark with a sensitive side - and a secret - he's a vegetarian. When a great white lie turns Oscar into an improbable hero and the truth about Lenny makes him an outcast, the pair become the most unlikely of friends.

Shark Tale stars the voices of Will Smith as Oscar, a hustler who has always been able to talk his way out of trouble, until now; Robert De Niro as Don Lino, a great white shark at the top of the Reef's food chain; Rene Zellweger as Angie, the beautiful angelfish who harbours a secret crush on Oscar; Angelina Jolie as the femme fatale, Lola, a cross between a lion fish and a dragonfish, who uses her feminine wiles to get what she wants; Jack Black as Don Lino's son Lenny, a great white shark who is a closet vegetarian; and director Martin Scorsese as Sykes, a puffer fish who is full of hot air and never misses an opportunity to make a few extra clams.

Executive producer Jeffrey Katzenberg remarks: "Shark Tale shares the same kind of sensibility as Shrek in that it's a little irreverent, a little subversive, and very much a play on a genre. Just as Shrek was a send-up of fairy tales, this film takes on the classic mob film genre, turning it upside down and inside out and just having a lot of fun with it."

Director Rob Letterman, who also co-wrote the Shark Tale screenplay with Michael J. Wilson, acknowledges: "It has elements of a pop-culture parody, but it's also a romantic comedy and an action comedy and also has moments in which we root for the characters and believe in them. I think it has something in it for everybody."

Will Smith (pictured inset), who voices the central role of Oscar, said he loved the process of doing animation. "I found a real freedom in it because you can do almost anything with the character, especially with a character like this. I got in there and didn't allow myself to hold back anything. There were no rules for Oscar; I just got to play."

Smith describes Oscar as "a small fish in a really big pond, but he sees big things for himself, so there's a clash of reality and perception. He's willing to do just about anything to be rich and famous and live at the top of the Reef because that's where the somebodies' liveand Oscar wants to be somebody. He's so busy looking up to the top of the Reef that he can't see the beauty that's right in front of him."

Jack Black, who stars as the voice of Lenny, says: "Lenny is a vegetarian shark, not because he doesn't like the taste of meat, but because he's a humanitarian - a fishitarian' in this case. He just doesn't believe any living thing should be killed. Lenny is a tender soul, which makes him a fish out of water in his world. He doesn't fit in with the other sharks because he's sweet and kind, but in the end, he may turn out to be the most powerful shark of all because of his brains and his heart."

A self-proclaimed "animation junkie," Black reveals that, had his life taken a different turn, he might actually have been on the other side of the microphone for Shark Tale. "I was really into animation from early on. Back in high school, I wanted to be an animator for a while. I've always wanted to do cartoons, and I think it's amazing what they've done with computer animation today. It's a whole new world."

In a rare acting turn, famed director Martin Scorsese voices the role of Sykes, a puffer fish with a rather distinctive pair of eyebrows. "Hey, others may criticise, but Sykes sees Oscar's good fortune as an opportunity," says Scorsese, defending his character's questionable motives.

"He wants to take Oscar under his wing, or under his fin in this case, which is a little hard because he's a puffer fish, and when he gets upset he inflates and his voice gets very high and he talks very fast. I can't imagine where they got that from or why Jeffrey Katzenberg thought of me for that role"

Katzenberg relates: "I've known Marty for 25-plus years, and I'm always amazed by the unique way he talks. He talks very, very fast - he can say almost anything in just a few seconds. His mind goes so fast and he's actually able to speak things as fast as he can think them.

"So I went to him one day and said, Marty, you have probably never realised this, but you speak in this incredibly unique way, and it's actually pretty funny - funny in a good way'. I finally showed him this picture of Sykes, the puffer fish, and he fell over laughing."