Airports seem to be a place of serendipity for Peter Mansbridge.

The CBC news anchor and revered Canadian figure was famously discovered during a stint at a Manitoba airport when he stepped up from his baggage duties to deliver an impromptu flight announcement. Funnily enough, it was within one of those hubs of frenzied comings and goings that he landed his latest gig: a voice-acting role in Disney’s new animated flick, Zootopia, opening Friday (March 4).

“It was kind of a fluke, really,” Mansbridge explains, his commanding baritone easily discernible during a call with the Straight from Toronto. “I wasn’t aware of Zootopia; I wasn’t looking for a job. I didn’t audition for anything.”

Mansbridge was catching a flight from Toronto to Vancouver when the man behind him in the security lineup, a Disney employee, approached him about potentially voicing an upcoming animated feature.

“I sort of looked at him like, ‘I don’t think so. This guy’s gotta be smoking something here,’ ” he recounts with a chuckle. “But we exchanged cards, and, sure enough, within a short time I got an e-mail detailing everything.”

The long-time broadcaster is making his debut on the big screen in apt style, lending his chops to a character that, rumour has it, was tailored specifically for him: a moose anchor by the name of Peter Moosebridge who reports on a string of attacks occurring in the city of Zootopia, where civilized, anthropomorphic creatures appear to be reverting to their primitive states.

The case involves a list of missing animals, including a florist otter, which the spirited Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin)—the city’s first-ever rabbit cop—volunteers to find, despite the contempt of her stern Cape buffalo chief (Idris Elba). (Police-officer jobs are traditionally reserved for larger, more macho types like lions, rhinoceros, and polar bears, you see.) She enlists the help of Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), a smooth-talking con-artist fox, and the two embark on a journey that shines a remarkable light on stereotyping, minority profiling, and the nuances of interspecies (read: interracial) relations that hold startling parallels to real-life issues and events.

“All the messages and all of the story’s about this kind of complicated world we live in now, and it draws upon the lessons of diversity and the excitement of having a dream and being willing to follow it and strive for it, because everything’s possible,” Mansbridge says. “And I think that’s good: those are good, basic lessons for young people and older people to keep in mind.”

This may all seem like pretty heavy stuff, especially coming from the same guys who dreamed up Frozen and Wreck-It Ralph, but, like the bulk of the Mouse House’s most cherished fare, Zootopia maintains a comedic, happy-go-lucky charm that makes its understated rectitude more heart-warming than arduous or unbearably smug.

“Look, I hope people leave feeling that they’ve been entertained, that they’ve spent a couple of hours that they’ve really enjoyed,” Mansbridge adds. “If they’ve managed to take away some of the lessons within the movie, that’s great too, and perhaps even better. And I think that most people will do exactly that.”