00:00 It is bigger and better in every way.
00:03 And I'm in it!
00:04 [music]
00:11 Well, I think it's a lovely kind of reminder of innocence.
00:15 And, you know, there was something sweet about this movie.
00:17 The first time around, you know, there were people that looked at it and went,
00:20 "I don't know. It's a kids' movie. Do you really want to do a kids' movie?"
00:23 And I went, "Well, yeah."
00:25 And, you know, because kids appreciate movies like nobody else.
00:29 But first of all, there was something sweet about it.
00:32 At the heart of it, you know, I play the contrast to this incredible innocence.
00:38 I play the evil 3.0 quantum version of Robotnik in this.
00:45 And there's no limits to my powers.
00:48 I'm a demigod of evil.
00:50 And it's all in service of showing you, again, what matters,
00:56 which is that, you know, at some point of our lives,
00:59 we were these innocent, non-skeptical beings
01:03 that enjoyed everything that popped up in the zeitgeist, you know?
01:07 And it was innocent and beautiful.
01:10 And you didn't care, you know, what the bubble gum was going to do to you.
01:14 You just chewed it up and blew a bubble, man.
01:17 You know? You didn't look at the ingredients.
01:20 Yeah, it's like--I hope it's fun for the audience to see this sort of transition
01:24 that's going on from the first movie to the second film.
01:27 The first movie was like Tom and Sonic were buddies,
01:30 and they kind of ate chili dogs together and hung out.
01:34 And now it's like--I think they're both feeling the word "responsibility," right?
01:38 Like Tom's feeling a certain responsibility, and Maddie,
01:41 for sort of guiding him through his life and raising a kid.
01:45 And they weren't ready for this, really.
01:47 And he's having to learn about responsibility,
01:50 and with his great powers come that responsibility.
01:53 But yeah, I mean, you know, it's like that parental thing of like
01:57 you can't be their best friend, but you've got to teach them and guide them.
02:02 But you can still have a good relationship, I guess is what I was trying to say.
02:08 Great sendings, terrible landing.
02:10 Great point, terrible way to end it.
02:12 I didn't go to a screening of that film,
02:15 but the people that sent me videos of their theaters exploding was just overwhelming.
02:21 Who knew that that would--I had no idea that that would happen.
02:23 I knew people liked Tails. I knew people loved Sonic.
02:25 But that universally people were screaming in the theaters.
02:30 Who--I--meh. It was amazing.
02:33 It was so freaking fun.
02:35 I don't know if you can say "freaking," but yeah.
02:37 I said it twice. But it was that much fun, you know?
02:40 Like working with Natasha, who's an incredible artist in general all around,
02:45 and to collaborate with her and to just have fun,
02:49 like that's the juicy part, right?
02:51 To leave it all on the table and do all the things that weren't in the script
02:55 and it made it, and you're like, "Oh, that's cool."
02:58 That's the stuff we live for.
03:00 So for me, that was one of the most exciting parts.
03:03 When I do comedy scenes, I always liken it to tennis.
03:07 And sometimes it's playing tennis with drapes,
03:10 and you hit the ball and it hits the drape and hits the floor
03:12 and you've got to chase it, and that's a hard joke to make fly.
03:15 But then sometimes you're across from Venus.
03:18 [laughter]
03:19 And you get to play, and it's just so much fun.
03:24 Character is so important, and that's specific to all movies.
03:27 It's not something that's just video game adaptations.
03:31 Whether it's a comic book, a video game, a short story,
03:35 no matter what the source material is, it's always going to come down to character.
03:38 It's always going to come down to the audience,
03:40 falling in love with those characters, rooting for them,
03:42 whatever journey they're going on.
03:44 So it's so important, and we work so hard,
03:47 especially bringing in new characters like Knuckles and Tails in this film,
03:50 that you really are rooting for them and you're invested in them.
03:54 The family, too, just to speak to that.
03:56 It got bigger. We have Knuckles, we have Tails joining.
04:01 The family is getting more interesting and more fun and dynamic,
04:07 and I think audiences are really going to enjoy it, and Shemar as well.
04:10 [laughter]
04:11 I think the job was more trying not to be too conscious of fabricating anything
04:17 to try and one-up what we had in the first movie.
04:20 And I think what worked so well in the first movie that ends up working out
04:24 even better in this one is just keeping it authentic between Stone and Robotnik.
04:30 How do they engage with each other? How does Stone engage with other people?
04:33 In this day and age, whatever reason we can have,
04:36 because everybody's in their own little rooms and their own little spaces,
04:39 and they've got their video chairs and they've got their whatever,
04:42 and they're kind of lost in their own little cliques that they create online or whatever.
04:48 And this is an actual thing that physically pulls families together
04:53 and allows them to sit together and enjoy something in common,
04:58 which makes me happy.
05:00 And if I can give a little bit of that back to the world, that'd be great.
05:04 Was the John Ralfio line in proper, or was that in the script?
05:07 Okay, so what happened was, the reason that happened was,
05:10 we did this scene, and so I'm reacting to what's on television, it's a movie,
05:13 and we're trying to find clearances for different films.
05:16 I did a joke line for three or four different movies,
05:19 and then in the end we couldn't get them, and it was one of the last things we recorded.
05:23 They're like, "Well, what if we didn't make fun of the movie itself,
05:26 but what if you just did?" And then Jeff and Toby said,
05:29 "What if you did John Ralfio's, one of his quotes?"
05:32 And I did it, and I did it in the booth, and they filmed me doing it,
05:34 and they animated it like Sonic doing John Ralfio,
05:37 which means John Ralfio is canon in the Sonic universe?
05:42 Which means Sonic 3 could just be Sonic and John Ralfio saving the world?
05:48 Which I think nobody is asking for.
05:51 But there was one other John Ralfio reference in it,
05:54 there was a "Don't be suspicious" reference, and we cut it because we decided
05:57 that more than one John Ralfio reference is way too many John Ralfio references.
06:00 No, never can have too many.
06:03 Oh my gosh, well we got to do so much cool stuff with this film.
06:06 I mean, when you watch it, it's not going to look like the studio said no to anything,
06:11 which is why it's so great and such a big, fun movie
06:15 that I'm so excited for people to see in a theater on a big screen.
06:19 No, we really got to go big on this one, and of course there's stuff that we saved,
06:25 not because it was too big, but just for the story, everything had to fit,
06:30 it had to be right for the story we were telling.
06:32 But there's 30 years of this character, of Sonic, and there's so much great material.
06:37 So yeah, it's exciting that there's so many characters, so many storylines
06:41 to kind of pull from as we continue to kind of craft our movie storyline.
06:45 There's more action, more adventure, and since I have an agent now, there are perks.
06:50 I have four words for you, contractual chili dog breaks.
06:55 Say it, Dog!
06:58 I put a little tremola on there, but I'm definitely in the wrong key.
07:03 You're unskilled.
07:05 Hang on!
07:06 Untrained.
07:09 Unworthy!
07:15 You forgot one.
07:17 Unstoppable.
07:19 [MUSIC]
07:29 (upbeat music)
07:31 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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