Lightyear Cast Interview
“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
00:00 These are his words, you know, and they'll never not be his words.
00:03 So you have to at once acknowledge that, but still, you can't just do a shameless
00:08 Tim Allen impression. You have to find a way to add your own interpretation.
00:12 "To infinity and..."
00:15 Obviously, "to infinity and beyond" is the most iconic line, and that's one of the most
00:26 intimidating ones, just because Tim did such an amazing job with it. And I really like what Pixar
00:32 did in terms of understanding why that's the catchphrase, that it was with him and Alicia,
00:37 and that was kind of their thing together. I just thought that was such a clever spin on it.
00:42 But again, you're trying to find a way to make it your own while also honoring the amazing work that
00:50 Tim did. What Tim did is why we love this character.
00:54 "Buzz Lightyear to Star Command. Coming to Star Command. Why don't they answer?"
00:58 Oh man, it was a dream come true. When I heard about the idea, I immediately was like,
01:04 "Oh my gosh, I really would love to be a part of this." And so when I got the opportunity and I got
01:08 the role, I was just thrilled. I mean, this is an iconic legacy character. You know, it's a film,
01:15 Toy Story is a film that I've always known growing up. You know, I don't remember really a time
01:19 without it. So to be able to be a part of that story is awesome.
01:22 Yeah, me too. I was honored to be asked and it didn't take much to convince me,
01:27 except just hearing the word Lightyear and knowing that Chris was going to do it.
01:31 Yeah, and they were wonderful. Again, I went in, I knew nothing. I was reading scenes and then
01:38 halfway through trying to figure out still what was going on, what the scene was following. But
01:44 despite that, you know, it all works and it's a great film.
01:49 I was real excited. I was amazed. The most difficult thing was, you know, getting information
01:58 and the characters. They're very secretive. I said, "But you got to tell us."
02:03 Anyway, that was great. It was also great that it didn't have any, you know, anxiety attached to it.
02:14 Like, you know, we'd like you to do this. And I said, "I'd like to do this." And then,
02:19 you know, Bob's your uncle. That was that.
02:20 I do this and they shave a little time off my sentence.
02:24 Okay. And what about you?
02:26 Well, I thought this was going to be like a fun boot camp workout thing, but it is not.
02:31 Just talking about it now, I was there for Toy Story on the ground floor as a kid. And if this
02:38 was double featured with that back then, I would have just been on the floor.
02:42 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, that was the goal was to make a movie that would
02:48 put kids on the floor, as it were. That was really our goal. You know, they need to be floored by
02:54 this because that's the way I was for so many movies as a kid. And films had a tremendous
02:58 impact on me. And it changed the course of my life. And I wanted to do a film like that that
03:02 could do the same thing for a small kid today.
03:05 Well, it's a weird thing because actually Angus said something this morning which made me go,
03:09 wow, I didn't thought about it that way. And he's like, yeah, but we're now actually in the Toy
03:13 Story universe because we are the filmmakers who made the movie that Andy saw as a kid. And I'm
03:20 like, oh, that's so weird. That means that I was living in that universe scoring movies. And he was
03:27 doing it. It's just the more you think about it, the crazier it is. But it's really cool. It's
03:32 really fun. So, yeah, in that the movie that Andy was watching was one of his favorite movies.
03:39 You know, we treated this as the movies that we loved when we were kids growing up. This was
03:43 we were going to make the movie that we would have always loved to have seen, you know, right
03:48 alongside of Star Wars, Back to the Future, Gremlins, whatever it is, all of those movies,
03:53 this could have been just thrown in right alongside of them in somewhere in the 1980s.
03:58 And we would have been perfectly happy with that because we love it. Everything we do is sort of
04:02 born out of all of the things we watched growing up and all the things we loved. And this movie
04:08 is just a giant love letter to all of that. To infinity. Are you trying to get me to pull
04:13 your finger? Don't fall for it. No, not like that. Sorry, it's a thing your grandma and I used to do.
04:18 Yeah. Maurice, Izzy and Darby are this ragtag group of junior rangers who are just,
04:23 they come to Buzz's rescue in his hour of need and they're all such a delight. What is the most
04:29 heroic trait that you see in your character for Lightyear? In my case, I'd say she's willing to
04:34 put herself in danger to try and protect the others. It's a violation of my parole. My guy,
04:46 Mo Morrison, his most heroic trait is perseverance. He will try and try and try to get,
04:54 to find a use for his pen or for any other thing. And he'll try until there is a use.
05:00 Don't die. Don't die. It's just something you want to do every day. It's still an objective.
05:06 If I may. I think Izzy's most heroic trait is that she knows how to get her team engaged and
05:15 empowered. She knows how to, you know, get everybody involved. And I think a team is
05:20 always the best way to finish any goal. The probability of survival with an
05:24 inexperienced crew is 38.2%. Seems a bit low. We have to talk about Sox because everybody is just
05:33 over the moon for Peter Stone's character. How did Sox come into play? And why does Andy not have one?
05:42 Well, we have an answer for this that we've recently discovered. Andy's mom,
05:46 it was a very expensive toy. It was like the, like because it was a talking toy at that time
05:53 in like 1986, 87, it maybe had like a little cassette deck in the back. Like it was a little
06:00 out of the price range for that family. And so there were plenty of toys. And I was talking about,
06:06 we were just talking about this with Michael Cicchino, how he and I both wanted an AT-AT
06:10 from Star Wars, from Empire Strikes Back. We never got it. It was the one we didn't have. So
06:14 Andy doesn't have all the toys. He has some of the toys. That's the way it was when I was a kid.
06:18 I had some of the figures and then oddly my dad and I made all the vehicles for things. That's
06:24 the way that I grew up. And so that's the idea behind it. He didn't have the Sox. But Sox was
06:31 always a sidekick for Buzz. Buzz is a side character in Toy Story. So if you're going to
06:36 make Buzz a main character, he needs a sidekick. And that sidekick can't be sarcastic. It has to
06:41 be loyal. And I wanted to find something that was naturally funny from an animation perspective.
06:46 And animatronic robot cat seemed like the right way to go. It's figures like this that are kind
06:51 of hard to nail, especially on a comedic level, because you could very much just have him keep
06:56 saying, I just want you five minutes. And that's the guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's just such a
07:01 life to him. Yeah. Well, I think because of the voice actor, I think that it's the animation.
07:07 Tim Pixton was there. He's a directing animator. He did a lot of the hard work and Michael Comet,
07:12 who did the, who built the character. But it was Peter Soane, who is genuinely like that kind of
07:20 appealing, nice guy. Like everyone feels the way they feel about Sox is how everyone that knows
07:25 Pete feels about Pete. And so having Peter as the voice takes it a long way. It was hard to find
07:32 someone that was more warm in the right way without feeling sarcastic or cynical. And Peter has the
07:38 ability to be hilarious and be totally true. And that truth, since comedy is two truths that come
07:43 together to form a new truth, Pete has that in spades. Buzz, that was utterly terrifying. And
07:49 I regret having joined you. You did go in a little cold, not knowing many specifics about
07:55 the role of Zurg. I did not. As you moved forward, what helped influence your performance? Because
08:02 I don't think many people realize this. You're the second Brolin to play a Disney villain besides
08:07 your son, Josh, in the Avengers films. Yeah, it's been the talk of the town for the last two days
08:13 here. But I don't know that anybody outside now, but it sounds like it's going to be part of the
08:21 latest news that we're going to finally have it out. You know, I got to start going to Gold's gym
08:27 and catch up with him because this is going to be one nasty fight. He's already killed half the
08:33 universe, man. I got to catch up. That's what sequels are for. I mean, I hope so. For very
08:40 selfish reasons. Yeah, there's a lot of room. There's a lot of places to go and a lot of great
08:45 characters in this. And so, yeah, I hope we have a chance to explore them further. This is exciting.
08:50 A new adventure. Lightyear is the film that Andy watches and it inspires the toys. That's right. So
08:56 your Lightyear's Buzz Lightyear, Tim Allen is obviously the toy. Right. Do you have any Captain
09:03 America merchandise that has another voice to it? And how weird is it? All of the Captain America
09:09 merchandise has another voice. I've never done any voice for any of the toys. I don't even know
09:14 if they can use my voice from the films in those toys. You know, a funny story, actually, there was
09:20 some toy that they put out that they wanted me to do the voice for. But I ended up having my brother
09:27 do it. My younger brother, who sounds similar to me, is the voice of one of the main original toys
09:34 of Captain America. But again, that was one of the reasons why I was able to at least wrap my head
09:40 around this project when they explained what it was going to be to understand why maybe it wouldn't
09:45 be Tim Allen's voice. OK, you just sent us further down the rabbit hole with that because you pulled
09:50 a Tom Hanks because his brother Jim tends to step in for him on some of the Toy Story. Does he? Does
09:56 he sound like Tom? I mean, that's an iconic voice. I mean, does he sound like Tom Hanks?
10:02 It's close. It's not a one for one, but it's close enough that it's never really been distracting.
10:06 Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Just the official Disney policy, I guess, or if not,
10:11 higher the sibling. Yeah. Ready, Captain Lightyear? Ready as I'll ever be, Commander Hawthorne.
10:16 So going back to Hawthorne in the lead up to the film's release, Lightyear almost removed
10:21 an LGBTQ plus moment from the film, but then it was reinstated as it was announced. What did the
10:28 cut look like? What did the altered version look like without that sequence? Yeah, the montage was
10:34 in there. The whole montage was in there. The only thing that changed was the 40th anniversary party
10:40 instead of the kind of held hands awkwardly. She put her head on her shoulder. No, it was just
10:47 it was a grab. It was like a grab and like a no. She tilted. I don't know if it was on the shoulder.
10:51 OK, we're going to sit here and it was anyway, you get the idea. It was a little weird. And so
10:56 it just felt a little bit like, what is that? It just felt like something you're missing.
11:01 You're going to kiss your spouse. So it was more natural that way. And we just wanted to get that
11:04 in the film. But everything else was the same. But Sox, how long were we gone? Meow, meow, meow,
11:09 meow, meow. Sixty two years, seven months and five days. What? I thought of Sox's point of view of
11:16 the montage of him just like waiting around, like killing time, trying to like poking at the
11:21 computer. But we haven't looked at that. I know I'd love to. Oh, but we just finished this one.
11:29 Come on. Yeah, we just we just look what we gave you on Tuesday. Come on. I demand a lot. OK,
11:33 no, I know that's beyond. That means beyond. Yeah. Well, we'll take it under advisement.
11:38 I'm glad to hear that would be something extra would be exciting to you. He's purring. He likes
11:43 it. Sox, do you like that? I do. Huh?