Sonic The Hedgehog 2" cast members Jim Carrey ( Dr. Ivo Robotnik), Ben Schwartz (Sonic), James Marsden (Tom), Colleen O'Shaughnessey (Tails), Tika Sumpter (Maddie), Natasha Rothwell (Rachel), Lee Majdoub. (Agent Stone) and director Jeff Fowler discuss the "Sonic The Hedgehog" film in this interview with CinemaBlend's Mike Reyes.
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00:00It is bigger and better in every way.
00:03And I'm in it!
00:11Well, I think it's a lovely kind of reminder of innocence and, you know, there was something sweet about this movie.
00:17The first time around, you know, there were people that looked at it and went like,
00:20I don't know, it's a kid's movie, do you really want to do a kid's movie?
00:23And I went, well, yeah.
00:25And, you know, because kids appreciate movies like nobody else.
00:29But first of all, there was something sweet about it.
00:32At the heart of it, you know, I play the contrast to this incredible innocence.
00:37You know, I play the evil 3.0 quantum version of Robotnik in this.
00:44And there's no limits to my powers.
00:48I'm a demigod of evil.
00:50And it's all in service of showing you, again, what matters.
00:56Which is that, you know, at some point of our lives, we were these innocent, non-skeptical beings
01:03that enjoyed everything that popped up in the zeitgeist, you know?
01:07And it was innocent and beautiful.
01:10And you didn't care, you know, what the bubble gum was going to do to you.
01:14You just chewed it up and blew a bubble, man.
01:17You know?
01:18You didn't look at the ingredients.
01:21Yeah, it's like, I hope it's fun for the audience to see this sort of transition that's going on
01:25from the first movie to the second film.
01:27And the first movie was like, Tom and Sonic were buddies.
01:30And, you know, they kind of ate chili dogs together and hung out.
01:34And now it's like, I think they're both feeling the word responsibility, right?
01:38Like Tom's feeling a certain responsibility, and Maddie,
01:41for sort of guiding him through his life and raising a kid.
01:45And they weren't ready for this, really.
01:47He's having to learn about responsibility.
01:49And with his great powers come that responsibility.
01:52Nice.
01:53But yeah, I mean, you know, it's like that parental thing of, like,
01:57you can't be their best friend, but you've got to teach them and guide them.
02:01But you can still have a good relationship, I guess is what I was trying to say.
02:07Great sentence, terrible landing.
02:09Great point, terrible way to end it.
02:11I didn't go to a screening of that film,
02:15but the people that sent me videos of their theaters exploding was just overwhelming.
02:21Who knew that that would happen?
02:22I had no idea that that would happen.
02:23I knew people liked Tails.
02:24I knew people loved Sonic.
02:25But universally, people were screaming in the theaters.
02:32It was amazing.
02:33It was so freaking fun.
02:35I don't know if you can say freaking, but yeah.
02:37I said it twice.
02:38But it was that much fun, you know?
02:41Working with Natasha, who's an incredible artist in general all around,
02:45and to collaborate with her and to just have fun, that's the juicy part, right?
02:51To leave it all on the table and do all the things that weren't in the script
02:55and it made it, and you're like, oh, that's cool.
02:58That's the stuff we live for.
03:00So for me, that was one of the most exciting parts.
03:03When I do comedy scenes, I always liken it to tennis.
03:07And sometimes it's playing tennis with drapes and you hit the ball
03:11and it hits the drape and hits the floor and you've got to chase it.
03:13And that's a hard joke to make fly.
03:15But then sometimes you're across from Venus and you get to play
03:21and it's just so much fun.
03:24Character is so important, and that's specific to all movies.
03:27It's not something that's just video game adaptations.
03:31Whether it's a comic book, a video game, a short story,
03:35no matter what the source material is, it's always going to come down to character.
03:38It's always going to come down to the audience falling in love with those characters,
03:41rooting for them, whatever journey they're going on.
03:44So it's so important, and we work so hard,
03:47especially bringing in new characters like Knuckles and Tails in this film,
03:50that you really are rooting for them and you're invested in them.
03:54The family too, just to speak to that.
03:56It got bigger. We have Knuckles, we have Tails joining.
04:02The family is getting more interesting and more fun and dynamic,
04:06and I think audiences are really going to enjoy it.
04:09And Shemar as well.
04:11I think the job was more trying not to be too conscious of fabricating anything
04:17to try and one-up what we had in the first movie.
04:20And I think what worked so well in the first movie that ends up working out
04:24even better in this one is just keeping it authentic between Stone and Robotnik.
04:30How do they engage with each other? How does Stone engage with other people?
04:33In this day and age, whatever reason we can have,
04:36because everybody's in their own little rooms and their own little spaces,
04:39and they've got their video chairs and they've got their whatever,
04:42and they're kind of lost in their own little cliques that they create online or whatever.
04:48And this is an actual thing that physically pulls families together
04:53and allows them to sit together and enjoy something in common,
04:58which makes me happy.
05:00And if I can give a little bit of that back to the world, that'd be great.
05:04Was the Jean-Ralphio line improv, or was that in the script?
05:07Okay, so what happened was, the reason that happened was,
05:10we did this scene, and so I'm reacting to what's on television.
05:13It's a movie, and we're trying to find clearances for different films.
05:16And I did a joke line for three or four different movies,
05:19and then in the end we couldn't get them.
05:21And it was one of the last things we recorded.
05:23They're like, well, what if we didn't make fun of the movie itself,
05:26and what if you just did, and then Jeff and Toby said,
05:28what if you did like Jean-Ralphio's, one of his quotes?
05:31And I did it, and I did it in the booth, and they filmed me doing it,
05:34and they animated it like Sonic doing Jean-Ralphio,
05:37which means Jean-Ralphio is canon in the Sonic universe,
05:41which means Sonic 3 could just be Sonic and Jean-Ralphio saving the world,
05:48which I think nobody is asking for.
05:50But there was one other Jean-Ralphio reference in it.
05:54There was a Don't Be Suspicious reference,
05:56and we cut it because we decided that more than one Jean-Ralphio reference
05:59is way too many Jean-Ralphio references.
06:01No, never connect too many. No.
06:03Oh, my gosh. Well, we got to do so much cool stuff with this film.
06:06I mean, when you watch it, it's not going to look like the studio said no to anything,
06:11which is why it's so great and such a big, fun movie
06:15that I'm so excited for people to see in a theater on a big screen.
06:19No, we really got to go big on this one.
06:21And, of course, there's stuff that we saved,
06:25not because it was too big, but just for the story.
06:29Everything had to fit. It had to be right for the story we were telling.
06:32But there's 30 years of this character, of Sonic,
06:35and there's so much great material.
06:37So, yeah, it's exciting that there's so many characters,
06:40so many storylines to kind of pull from
06:42as we continue to kind of craft our movie storyline.
06:45There's more action, more adventure,
06:47and since I have an agent now, there are perks.
06:50I have four words for you.
06:52Contractual chili dog breaks.
06:55Sayonara!
06:58I put a little Tremola on there, but I'm definitely in the wrong key.
07:03You're unskilled.
07:05Hang on!
07:06Untrained.
07:10Unworthy!
07:15You forgot one.
07:17Unstoppable.
07:20Unstoppable.