Her kitty, his hippo

Jim Gianopulos and helmer Cameron Crowe"Zoo" novelist Benjamin Mee meets Matt Damon at the Royalton. Scarlett Johansson with Elle Fanning Richard Lovett, Julie Yorn and Tom Rothman celebrate in Gotham. Ben Seeder and Dustin Ybarra get into the "Zoo" spirit. Since the scene-stealing snakes, tigers, porcupines, monkeys and lions in Twentieth Century Fox's "We Bought a Zoo" weren't invited to either the Ziegfeld preem or the Royalton Hotel after-party, it seemed only appropriate to ask the pic's flock of human actors which critter most reflected their personality. "I always thought that if I wanted to be an animal, I'd want to be a house cat," said Scarlett Johansson, "but there's no house cats in this movie. So I guess a big cat." Like a leopard? "Not as majestic as a leopard," the actress qualified. "I don't see myself in being predatory in that way, although I guess house cats are predatory if you're a mouse." Matt Damon deferred to his co-star's opinion. "Scarlett says I'm a hippo even though there isn't one in the movie," he said. "I think she's been saying I've been eating too much." Elle Fanning picked a co-star from the film. "I love Crystal, the capuchin monkey; I love people and she loves people, too. And I like being goofy and she was pretty funny too, and so cute," she added. "The lion, but the really kind of wise, curmudgeonly lion, not the one that eats you," said Thomas Haden Church. "The one that sits around and looks a little smug; that would be me." Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com