Tiberius is a major character in Universal•Illumination's 2016 animated feature film The Secret Life of Pets. He is grumpy curmudgeonly red-tailed hawk who lives on the rooftop of the New York apartment who becomes friends with Gidget after agreeing to find her love interest Max.
Background[]
Personality[]
Tiberius is kept in a cage with a mask atop the Apartment Building in normal times. He’s a tough and serious-minded hawk, but he also has a good heart and enjoys flying. Though, because of his predatory instincts, he at first tries to catch some small animals, even including Gidget and Norman.
Physical appearances[]
Tiberius is a red-tailed hawk. His head, wings, back and tail are all dark brown. His stomach is light brown and has small brown stripes. He has big brown eyes, yellow beak with grey at the end and yellow feet with grey claws.
Role in the film[]
When Gidget comes up onto the roof of the apartment, Tiberius slyly offers to help her find Max if she promises to free him. Once she removes the hood from his head, Tiberius attacks her, but is stopped by the chain he is locked to. Shocked that Tiberius lied to her, Gidget refuses to trust him to set him free. Tiberius apologizes for his behavior; it is due to his high prey drive, which is one of the reasons he has no friends. Feeling sorry for him, Gidget tells him that if he helps her, she'll be his best friend, which pleases him very much.
After daydreaming of what he and Gidget could do as friends - by letting Gidget fly with him on his back and him catching squirrels easier - Tiberius decides to willingly help the pets search for a missing Max. He delivers Ozone to Gidget who ruthlessly interrogates him for Max's location. Gidget then recruits other pets from the apartment and they are led by Pops, an old Basset Hound who knows New York well.
They eventually enter the sewer where The Flushed Pets are at, but they are seen and recognized as friends of the tiny dog (Max), so they are chased and Tiberius picks up Gidget before she is almost caught by Tattoo. They arrive in a small garden, Community Garden, and Tiberius talks to Gidget that maybe she can start knowing other dogs instead of Max, but Gidget refuses to give up so they move on.
After the pets track Max and Duke across the alleyways of downtown New York to Brooklyn, he flies Gidget over Manhattan to the Brooklyn Bridge to stop The Flushed Pets' attacks against Max. After that, he flies back to the apartment to meet his owner.
Trivia[]
- Norman adopts Tiberius's nickname "Eagle Eye" as his codename when reporting to Max in The Secret Life of Pets 2.
- Tiberius is based on the hawks in New York. Particularly a red-tailed hawk named Pale Male once nested on a Fifth Avenue building near Central Park.
- Tiberius has the same exact voice actor as Marlin, Nemo's dad from Pixar's Finding Nemo and its sequel Finding Dory, as both of these characters are voiced by Albert Brooks. Coincidentally, both Finding Dory and The Secret Life of Pets were released during summer of 2016.
- He makes a cameo in the Minions short Minion Scouts.