- 6 days ago
“Lightyear’s” Chris Evans (Buzz Lightyear), Keke Palmer (Izzy Hawthorne), Taika Waititi (Mo Morrison), Dale Soules (Darby Steel), and James Brolin (Zurg), as well as Writer/Director Angus MacLane, Producer Galyn Susman and Composer Michael Giacchino join CinemaBlend to dish on everything you need to know about the Disney/Pixar film.
Watch to hear how Evans approached the voice of the iconic character, how it felt for Palmer and Waititi to join the "Toy Story" franchise and more!
Watch to hear how Evans approached the voice of the iconic character, how it felt for Palmer and Waititi to join the "Toy Story" franchise and more!
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Short filmTranscript
00:00These are his words, you know, and they'll never not be his words.
00:03So you have to at once acknowledge that, but still, you can't just do a shameless Tim Allen impression.
00:09You have to find a way to add your own interpretation.
00:13To infinity.
00:15And...
00:20Obviously, to infinity and beyond is the most iconic line,
00:25and that's one of the most intimidating ones, just because Tim did such an amazing job with it.
00:30And I really like what Pixar did in terms of understanding why that's the catchphrase,
00:36that it was with him and Alicia, and that was kind of their thing together.
00:40I just thought that was such a clever spin on it.
00:42But again, you're trying to find a way to make it your own,
00:47while also honoring the amazing work that Tim did.
00:51What Tim did is why we love this character.
00:54Buzz Lightyear to Star Command.
00:55Come in, Star Command.
00:57Why don't they answer?
00:59Oh, man, it was a dream come true.
01:01When I heard about the idea, I immediately was like,
01:04oh my gosh, I really would love to be a part of this.
01:06And so when I got the opportunity and I got the role, I was just thrilled.
01:10I mean, this is an iconic legacy character.
01:14It's a film, Toy Story is a film that I've always known growing up.
01:17I don't remember really a time without it.
01:19So to be able to be a part of that story is awesome.
01:22Yep, me too.
01:23I was honored to be asked.
01:24And it didn't take much to convince me except just hearing the word Lightyear
01:29and knowing that Chris was going to do it.
01:31Yeah, and they were wonderful.
01:33Again, I went in, I knew nothing.
01:35I was reading scenes and then halfway through trying to figure out still what was going on,
01:41what the scene was following.
01:45But despite that, it all works.
01:47And it's a great film.
01:48Well, I was real excited.
01:50I was amazed.
01:54The most difficult thing was, you know, getting information.
01:58Yes.
02:00And the characters, they're very secretive.
02:02I said, but you've got to tell us.
02:05Anyway, that was great.
02:08It was also great that it didn't have any, you know, anxiety attached to it.
02:13It was like, you know, we'd like you to do this.
02:17And I said, I'd like to do this.
02:18And then, you know, Bob's your uncle.
02:20That was that.
02:21I do this and they shave a little time off my sentence.
02:24Okay.
02:25And what about you?
02:26Well, I thought this was going to be like a fun boot camp workout thing.
02:30But it is not.
02:32Just talking about it now, I was there for Toy Story on the ground floor as a kid.
02:37And if this was double featured with that back then, I would have just been on the floor.
02:42Oh, yeah.
02:42Oh, yeah, absolutely.
02:43I mean, that was the goal, was to make a movie that would put kids on the floor, as it
02:50were.
02:51That was really our goal.
02:52You know, they need to be floored by this.
02:54Because that's the way I was for so many movies as a kid.
02:57And films had a tremendous impact on me.
02:59And it changed the course of my life.
03:00And I wanted to do a film like that that could do the same thing for a small kid today.
03:05Well, it's a weird thing.
03:06Because actually, Angus said something this morning which made me go, wow, I hadn't thought about it that way.
03:10And he's like, yeah, but we're now actually in the Toy Story universe.
03:14Because we are the filmmakers who made the movie that Andy saw as a kid.
03:20And I'm like, oh, that's so weird.
03:22That means that I was living in that universe scoring movies.
03:27And he was, it's just, the more you think about it, the crazier it is.
03:31But it's really cool.
03:32It's really fun.
03:33So, yeah.
03:34And in that, the movie that Andy was watching was one of his favorite movies.
03:39You know, we treated this as the movies that we loved when we were kids growing up.
03:42This was, we were going to make the movie that we would have always loved to have seen, you know,
03:48right alongside of Star Wars, Back to the Future, Gremlins, whatever it is.
03:52All of those movies, this could have been just thrown in right alongside of them in somewhere in the 1980s.
03:58And we would have been perfectly happy with that because we love it.
04:01Everything we do is sort of born out of all of the things we watched growing up and all the
04:05things we loved.
04:07And this movie is just a giant love letter to all of that.
04:11To Infinity.
04:12Are you trying to get me to pull your finger?
04:14Don't fall for it.
04:14No, not like that.
04:16Sorry, it's a thing your grandma and I used to do.
04:18Yeah.
04:20Maurice, Izzy, and Darby are this ragtag group of junior rangers who are just, they come to Buzz's rescue in
04:25his hour of need, and they're all such a delight.
04:28What is the most heroic trait that you see in your character for Lightyear?
04:32In my case, I'd say she's willing to put herself in danger to try and protect the others.
04:40Hmm.
04:41You there, grab it!
04:42It's the violation of my parole!
04:44My guy, Mo Morrison, his most heroic trait is perseverance.
04:52He will try and try and try to find a use for his pen or for any other thing, and
04:59he'll try until there is a use.
05:01And don't die.
05:03Don't die.
05:04It's just something you want to do every day.
05:06It's still an objective.
05:06If I may.
05:07I think Izzy's most heroic trait is that she knows how to get her team engaged and empowered.
05:15She knows how to, you know, get everybody involved, and I think a team is always the best way to
05:21finish any goal.
05:22The probability of survival with an inexperienced crew is 38.2%.
05:27Hmm, seems a bit low.
05:28We have to talk about socks because everybody is just over the moon for Peter Stone's character.
05:36How did socks come into play, and why does Andy not have one?
05:41Well, we have an answer for this that we've recently discovered.
05:45Andy's mom, it was a very expensive toy.
05:48It was, like, the, like, because it was a talking toy at that time, in, like, 1986, 87, it maybe
05:56had, like, a little cassette deck in the back.
05:58Like, it was a little bit out of the price range for that family.
06:03And so, there were plenty of toys, and I was talking about, we were just talking about this Michael Cicchino,
06:07how he and I both wanted an AT-AT from Star Wars, from Empire Strikes Back.
06:11We never got it.
06:12It was the one we didn't have.
06:13So, Andy doesn't have all the toys.
06:15He has some of the toys.
06:16That's the way it was when I was a kid.
06:18I had some of the figures, and then, oddly, my dad and I made all the vehicles for things.
06:23That's the way that I grew up.
06:25And so, that's the idea behind it.
06:28He didn't have the socks.
06:29But socks was always a sidekick for Buzz.
06:32Buzz is a side character in Toy Story.
06:35So, if you're going to make Buzz a main character, he needs a sidekick.
06:38And that sidekick can't be sarcastic.
06:41It has to be loyal.
06:42And I wanted to find something that was naturally funny from an animation perspective.
06:46And animatronic robot cat seemed like the right way to go.
06:49It's figures like this that are kind of hard to nail, especially on a comedic level.
06:54Because you could very much just have him keep saying, I just want you five minutes.
06:58And that's the gag.
06:59Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:59But there's just such a life to him.
07:01Yeah.
07:02Well, I think because of the voice actor, I think that, well, it's the animation.
07:08Tim Pickson was our, he's a directing animator.
07:10He did a lot of the hard work.
07:12And Michael Comet, who did the, who built the character.
07:15But it was Peter Soane who is genuinely, like, that kind of appealing, nice guy.
07:22Like, everyone feels, the way they feel about socks is how everyone that knows Pete feels about Pete.
07:26And so having Peter as the voice takes it a long way.
07:31It was hard to find someone that was more warm in the right way without feeling sarcastic or cynical.
07:37And Peter has the ability to be hilarious and be totally true.
07:40And that truth, since comedy is two truths that come together to form a new truth, Pete has that in
07:46spades.
07:51So you did go in a little cold, not knowing many specifics about the role of Zerg.
07:56I did not.
07:58But as you moved forward, what helped influence your performance?
08:02Because I don't think many people realize this.
08:04You're the second Brolin to play a Disney villain besides your son Josh in the Avengers films.
08:09Yeah, it's been the talk of the town for the last two days here, but I don't know that anybody
08:17outside of it,
08:18but it sounds like it's going to be part of the latest news that we're going to finally have it
08:24out, you know.
08:25I got to start going to Gold's gym and catch up with him because this is going to be one
08:29nasty fight.
08:31He's already killed half the universe, man.
08:34I got to catch up.
08:35That's what sequels are for.
08:37I mean, I hope so, for very selfish reasons.
08:42There's a lot of room.
08:43There's a lot of places to go and a lot of great characters in this.
08:46And so, yeah, I hope we have a chance to explore them further.
08:50This is exciting.
08:50A new adventure.
08:52Lightyear is the film that Andy watches and it inspires the toys.
08:56That's right.
08:56So while you're Lightyear's Buzz Lightyear, Tim Allen is obviously the toy.
09:00Right.
09:01Do you have any Captain America merchandise that has another voice to it?
09:05And how weird is it?
09:07All of the Captain America merchandise has another voice.
09:10I've never done any voice for any of the toys.
09:14I don't even know if they can use my voice from the films in those toys.
09:18You know, a funny story, actually.
09:19There was some toy that they put out that they wanted me to do the voice for.
09:25But I ended up having my brother do it.
09:28My younger brother, who sounds similar to me, is the voice of one of the main original toys of Captain
09:35America.
09:35But again, that was one of the reasons why I was able to at least wrap my head around this
09:40project when they explained what it was going to be to understand why maybe it wouldn't be Tim Allen's voice.
09:46Okay, you just sent us further down the rabbit hole with that because you pulled a Tom Hanks because his
09:52brother Jim tends to step in for him on some of the Toy Story films.
09:56Does he?
09:56Does he sound like Tom?
09:57I mean, that's an iconic voice.
09:59I mean, does he sound like Tom Hanks?
10:01It's close.
10:03It's not a one for one, but it's close enough that it's never really been distracting.
10:06Yeah.
10:06Yeah.
10:07Wow.
10:08Just the official Disney policy, I guess.
10:10Or if not, it should be the other one.
10:11Fire the sibling.
10:12Yeah.
10:12Ready, Captain Lightyear?
10:13Ready as I'll ever be, Commander Hawthorne.
10:15So going back to Hawthorne, in the lead up to the film's release, Lightyear almost removed an LGBTQ plus moment
10:23from the film, but then it was reinstated as it was announced.
10:27What did the cut look like?
10:29What did the altered version look like without that sequence?
10:32Yeah.
10:32The montage was in there.
10:34The whole montage was in there.
10:35The only thing that changed was the 40th anniversary party instead of kiss.
10:42It kind of held hands awkwardly.
10:44No, she put her head on her shoulder.
10:46No, it was just a grab.
10:48It was like a grab and like a...
10:49No, she tilted.
10:51I don't know if it was on the shoulder.
10:52Okay.
10:52We're going to sit here and argue about this.
10:54Anyway, you get the idea.
10:55It was a little weird.
10:55And so it just felt a little bit like...
10:59What is that?
10:59It just felt like there was something missing.
11:01It's 40th anniversary.
11:01You're going to kiss your spouse.
11:02So it was more natural that way.
11:03And we just wanted to get that in the film.
11:05But everything else was the same.
11:07But Sox, how long were we gone?
11:09Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow.
11:1062 years, seven months, and five days.
11:14What?
11:14I thought of Sox's point of view of the montage of him just like waiting around, like killing
11:20time, trying to like poking at the computer.
11:23But we haven't...
11:24Oh, look at that face.
11:25I know.
11:25I'd love to.
11:26But have we...
11:27We just finished this one.
11:29Come on.
11:29We just...
11:30Look what we gave you on Tuesday.
11:31Come on.
11:32I demand a lot.
11:33Okay.
11:33You said to me and beyond.
11:35And that means beyond.
11:36Yeah.
11:37Well, we'll take it under advisement.
11:38I'm glad to hear that something extra would be exciting to you.
11:42He's purring.
11:43He likes it.
11:43Sox, do you like that?
11:45I do.
11:45Huh.
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