‘Soul’ cast members Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Angela Bassett, Phylicia Rashad, writers/directors Pete Docter and Kemp Powers, and producer Dana Murray discuss their new Pixar movie in this interview with CinemaBlend Managing Editor Sean O’Connell.
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00:00My kids watch it, you know, my kids, super critical,
00:02you know, because they watch a lot, you know,
00:04they dabbed, you know, the third act, you know,
00:06that, so they have that type of,
00:08but they just watched it and loved it.
00:09And so I think it's a beautiful Christmas gift
00:12that we can continue to unwrap for days to come.
00:15You're still alive?
00:17Can you help me get back?
00:18No way!
00:20There I am! What are we waiting for?
00:22Wait, not me!
00:23Aah!
00:25Aah!
00:27♪♪
00:29The relationship between Joe and 22,
00:31to me, is so extremely special.
00:33I'm curious, did you get to voice with Tina at all,
00:35or was it all stuff that...
00:37Yeah, I actually got a chance to be in the same room with her,
00:39and I was just blown away, man, just looking at Tina Fey,
00:41like, wow, that's Tina Fey.
00:43And, you know, as a comic, you know, she's a technician.
00:47I mean, you know, she knows how to, you know,
00:49she knows how to get it, get the characters,
00:50and I know her history as being a writer
00:52and things like that, so just being able to have that, man,
00:55means everything, you know, for the experience of the movie,
00:58to be able to meet someone that you really respect
01:00and admire and are a fan of.
01:02What do you want to be remembered for?
01:05Probably for doing this funny cowboy dance.
01:08Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
01:09I need to start with this rumor that's going around
01:12that you and Amy Poehler are trying to destroy me
01:15emotionally through your contributions
01:17to Pixar's library.
01:18It is not a rumor. It's true.
01:21It is? Mine, too.
01:24We're trying, Sean.
01:26There's a line that made me laugh,
01:27where you talk about using her voice,
01:30and it says, I just use this voice because it annoys people,
01:33but yet it's your voice.
01:34Do you ever stop and say, wait a second?
01:37Yeah, when we talked about that, I think I was,
01:39maybe, I don't want to misremember,
01:41but I think that was something
01:42that we all talked about together,
01:43of maybe naming, finding a joke way to name the fact
01:46that, like, why does this unborn soul
01:49sound like a middle-aged white lady?
01:50You can't crush a soul here.
01:52That's what life on Earth is for.
01:54Everyone's least favorite kind of person.
01:56Right.
01:57I universally despised middle-aged white ladies,
02:01and that was kind of the joke that came out of it.
02:02The music that Joe plays is so pivotal to the character.
02:06I'm really curious, at what point in the process
02:07did you get to hear the music they were going to use for him
02:09and was it important for you as you figured him out?
02:12Well, you know what?
02:13They let me hear some of it here and there,
02:16which, you know, I mean, Baptiste is just,
02:19I mean, come on, man.
02:20You're in high grass right now.
02:22You're in high grass.
02:24So anything he touches is amazing.
02:26Just being able to sort of take that music,
02:28use it as inspiration, use it as a mindset
02:31so that when we're saying those words,
02:33you know, they really mean something.
02:34You know, Joe is really passionate about this, you know?
02:38You start out on a goal or a dream
02:39and then your dream turns into something else
02:42that is just as fulfilling.
02:43So it was amazing.
02:45I'm curious if you got to hear any of that music
02:47as you started to prepare to play her.
02:51Not one note.
02:53You're kidding me, really?
02:54I kid you not.
02:57And that's so insightful that you would say that.
03:00Now I'm wondering why not?
03:02Well, no, no.
03:04I only heard it when, you know,
03:07when I was able to see the film
03:09and I was surprised and blown away.
03:11It was lovely.
03:12It was beautiful to see Dorothea get into the groove,
03:15into her own zone.
03:16In order for your story to start,
03:18you need to kill your main character.
03:20And I don't imagine that that's something
03:21that a lot of animated features get to say.
03:23So I'm just really curious
03:25what kind of conversations you had about
03:27how do we kill Joe and how much can we show?
03:30We had a couple of thoughts
03:31of maybe he was so into rehearsing
03:34that he gets hit by a truck or something.
03:36It needed to be kind of comedic
03:38because you don't want to horrify people right off the bat.
03:41We talked about a piano falling on him.
03:43Yeah, yeah, that would have been good.
03:46Well, we had the one boarded version.
03:47Remember when he banged his head on something
03:50dangling down and didn't know he was dead?
03:52Oh, yeah.
03:53He was still walking,
03:54then turned around and looked back
03:55and he was dead behind him.
03:57So his stomach got knocked out
04:00and kept walking down the street.
04:01Is this heaven?
04:03No.
04:04Is it H-E double hockey sticks?
04:08Hell? Hell? Hell?
04:09Hell? Hell? Hell?
04:11Bye, Coyote.
04:13You know, the consensus is that the brand of Pixar is,
04:17you know, whenever they come to you
04:18and say, we'd like you to do this,
04:19you would immediately say yes.
04:21I'm curious what your relationship was.
04:23Have you been trying to do a collaboration
04:24with them over the years?
04:25Is this something you were actively pursuing?
04:26I mean, in my mind, yeah.
04:28I was pursuing it with, like, Jedi mind tricks.
04:32But I was thrilled.
04:33You know, years ago, I was asked to revoice
04:36the American version of Ponyo,
04:37which I was thrilled enough to have been a part of that,
04:40which is another incredibly visually beautiful film.
04:44And I'm just a general Disney park nerd.
04:46So other than me just kind of telling anyone
04:49I met at the parks that I would be open to,
04:52working on any Disney project.
04:54Right.
04:55It wasn't something I was seeking out.
04:56However, it was something that I wanted.
05:00And I've wanted to voice in an animated feature.
05:04Oh, I've wanted to do that for so long.
05:06And this is my first.
05:07I loved it.
05:08I'd go in the studio.
05:11Of course, you know, well, I'm in the studio
05:14and everybody's on the West Coast
05:16and I'm on the East Coast,
05:17but we're talking to each other
05:19and we're seeing each other through a screen.
05:21And the lines are there and, you know,
05:23you read the line and because they're so expert, Peter,
05:27and, you know, they're so good at what they do,
05:31they hear things, subtle things.
05:33Okay.
05:34Like subtle intonations that give another clue,
05:37that give another feeling,
05:40that give another indication of what's happening.
05:43And I didn't find it tedious at all.
05:45I really enjoyed it.
05:47I'm curious, what aspect of the afterlife
05:49was the hardest visually for you guys to conjure
05:51or to settle on?
05:53Well, I mean, one of our board artists,
05:55Trevor Jimenez, boarded a lot of these kind of surreal scenes
05:59where he's falling through these weird spaces
06:02and they just seemed like that clicked pretty quickly.
06:05On the other hand, the great before,
06:08this area where we all get our personality,
06:10our sense of who we are,
06:11that took a couple of years really
06:16to be able to nail down.
06:17This isn't the great beyond.
06:19It's the great before.
06:21The great before?
06:23Because we wanted it to feel nonspecific culturally,
06:26because everybody in the world comes from this place.
06:29It should hopefully be visually obvious
06:31what's happening here,
06:32where we're being bestowed, you know,
06:34different kinds of, you know,
06:36adventurousness, resourcefulness,
06:38whatever kind of personality attributes we have.
06:41So that was very hard.
06:42I'm curious if you had a Dorothea yourself in your career,
06:45someone who you felt like you needed to impress
06:48to almost prove your talents to yourself.
06:50So we're down to middle school band teachers now.
06:54Oh, I always wanted to impress my dear aunt in my life
07:00because she would say,
07:02don't waste that education on theater.
07:05Don't do that.
07:06You know, so every time I got a job,
07:08it's like, I'm eating auntie, I'm eating, look, you know?
07:11So she was much like, you know,
07:12Jamie's mother, the mother character in there, the Libba,
07:15but she was supportive,
07:17but she wanted you to be practical.
07:19She wanted you to survive.
07:21But certainly for members of our community,
07:23I heard that speech,
07:25you gotta have something to fall back on.
07:28Oh no, no, no, no, no.
07:30Oh, that's not really a solid career.
07:32Well, that's very nice that you like to do that,
07:34but you know, you gotta face people don't really,
07:36it's a toss up, you know,
07:39but that's not why artists
07:42engage in the work that we engage in.
07:45We engage in the work because the work is in us to do.
07:49This morning, I was able to pause on something
07:52because I figured there'd be an Easter egg buried in it
07:54and it's all the, hello, my name is stickers.
07:57Oh yeah.
07:58I saw Joe Ramf's name in that.
07:59That was a very beautiful tribute.
08:01Joe was one of our great, great Head of Story collaborators,
08:06great actor, and we all learned a lot from him.
08:08I do feel like he's one of my mentors.
08:11All right.
08:15Sorry, I the zoned out a little back there.
08:18This movie visualized something
08:20that I've been able to experience
08:21a couple times playing music.
08:23The idea of The Zone.
08:26Have you experienced The Zone before in acting or comedy
08:29and how does it come about?
08:30What does it feel like for you?
08:32The Zone is amazing.
08:33Like, you know, acting, of course, Ray Charles
08:37doing stand-up, doing stand up in Oakland, California
08:40in 1991, comedy competition.
08:45I go up and it was a magical moment in Oakland, California.
08:48I will never forget Oakland for that,
08:51at the, I think the Paramount Theater.
08:53And it was just a moment, you know?
08:55Yeah, I mean, I think it's such a real thing.
08:57I think of it as a writer too, of being in the zone
08:59and you're like, oh, I'm finding some stuff
09:01that I didn't expect to find.
09:02And then you kind of lose sense of time.
09:05As an actor, as an improviser in comedy,
09:07I would say there's a moment where you're like,
09:09oh, I'm improvising with this person
09:12and we're kind of mind melding or whatever.
09:15I think it's a very real thing.
09:16I think so much of creativity is knowing
09:18that it's gonna come and go and then not panicking
09:20that you're not in the zone all the time
09:23and that you can work with other people
09:25to help keep you afloat when you're not in the zone.
09:28But yeah, I think it's a really real thing
09:30that they've tapped into there.
09:31Is that something you've experienced acting?
09:33Have you been able to find the zone acting?
09:35Oh yes, and that I guess is what,
09:39kept drawing me back, drawing me into it.
09:43Going into the zone, you just feel at one with it.
09:46You feel so peaceful and powerful and out of the way
09:52and in the center of it.
09:55It's the most glorious of feelings and it's rapturous.
10:00It happens, yes, it does.
10:01And it's magical when it happens
10:07and you can't describe it, you know?
10:11You can't quite put it into words,
10:15but it's a place of stillness.
10:18This weed.
10:19What is it?
10:19151,000 souls go into the great beyond every day
10:23and I count every single one of them.
10:26That counts off.
10:30Huh.
10:31Do when they love, they late.