Yet Ben Schwartz had never met Keanu Reeves or Idris Elba face to face until they attended Sonic the Hedgehog 3 together in London.
The three of them would spend all their time together, in voiceover booths, recording lines for their cute yet powerful video game characters. Schwartz has been playing Sonic the blue ‘super-fast’ hedgehog since the first ever movie released in 2020; Idris came in as a super-strong Knuckles a red echidna in its sequel in 2022 and now action icon Reeves is Shadow an evil black hedgehog in this third one.
As was Tails (voiced by Colleen O’Shaughnessey) being hinted at during the stinger of the first film’s end credit scene, so was Shadow teased at the closing of Sonic 2. In contrast to Sonic’s childlike innocence and cheerfulness, Shadow is dark with brooding tendencies and up to no good. The wicked hedgehog teams up with Jim Carrey’s Dr. Ivo Robotnik and his grandfather Gerald Robotnik who is also portrayed by heavily prosthetic-ed/aged-up Carrey.
“Sonic 3” is about to become this weekend’s top grossing movie ahead of Disney’s “Mufasa: The Lion King,” but it doesn’t seem that the blue hedgehog will be slowing down any further – he has another fourth movie scheduled for release date coming out next year.
Schwartz talks about working on “Sonic 4” as well as where his new comedy special “Ben Schwartz and Friends” might land a Variety interview.
How do you record your lines in the voiceover booth. Are you alone with him when he plays Shadow or is it only you there?
Like a lonely little boy, I am all by myself. That means doing me some blind line reads with someone else reading out the other lines. Moreover, there will be me doing lines over the footage and performance that they are going to use. There are lots of voice records since I do more than other artists have ever done. In this one, probably twenty times I did this. The aim is always to surpass what was there before so I can watch loose cuts and give my opinion on that as well as being part of the process itself.
Anything that can help make a better movie for me at least. It’s not even about improving my own character, but if somehow by way of setting it up better, I could make a joke about his land; then yes please! If there is an action scene which needs extra effort for improvement e.g., through making it more breathtaking etcetera? Therefore we would run through the movie multiple times until we thought we had captured its best version possible
Isn’t Sonic always bouncing and running around on screen? While you’re recording, how animated do you get?
Whenever Sonic runs in the game, I will run on the spot. If he punches while fighting, I go punching the air. When he’s hit, I make my whole body move so that the sound becomes real. When he eats something, I usually pop in a banana. These movies are just bananas when it comes to eating chili dogs. Trying literally everything to make it feel authentic is what drives me. You have to be able to connect with these films as though they were made for you. It’s not like this big cartoon character; it’s a funny kid with a heart who just wants people to like him and who’s going through stuff that’s for real.
As we grow up with our audiences, the themes get a little bit more mature but still accessible to all those young kids who watch these movies.
Well by now in number three you’re a “Sonic” veteran and Keanu Reeves is comingaren’t you?
That is a veteran player, true. I’m not so good to be compared with LeBron James though I could say that was my first thought before. But right now, whoever the oldest basketball athlete in the NBA is at present…I can’t think of who it is. That would be LeBron.
It seems like you have Keanu Reeves playing Bronny James’ role as he enters his first year in the “Sonic” leagues.
Lebron James and Keanu Reeves is Bronny James, a lot of people are saying. No that’s not quite it, I need something better than this one out.. Olden Polynice Otis Thorpe Craig Hodges and others who seemed to play forever when I was a kid . And I’m like that too. I don’t want to make myself look like a superstar. I call myself a good role player on the team. But I do appreciate you calling Keanu Reeves my child.
You kind of herded him into the franchise. So did you put him on any track? How big a Sonic fan was he before?
I didn’t meet him until the premiere itself. I finally met Idris Elba yesterday and this was after working with him for two movies and a TV show. We’re pretty solitary in our booths, so it was super cool to meet Keanu as I’m a huge fan of his. Huge Jim Carrey, Idris Elba fan, so getting to work with them is like working with legends and the LeBrons I’m their LeBron James Jr. which is really cool.
What was your first statement when you met Reeves in person?
I handed him two pills literally saying “red pill or blue pill.” One was Lactaid; one was Ibuprofen; he took Lactaid.
I didn’t know he’s lactose intolerant.
That’s canon. True fans know that Neo is lactose intolerant and has to take it before drinking milk or having ice cream.
You mentioned this movie is more mature than the others. Is it possible for Sonic to ever grow up?
Would you like to see a divorced Sonic in about 10 years? He’s maturing into adolescence. I’m not sure he’ll ever be like, my that’d be strange benefits are terrible. It’s more about watching a kid get bigger through all these things kids go through. I always play him as the same person at his core, but some of the situations he gets into require slightly more maturity on his part and you see things he has learned being used. Although if you want a Walter Matthau Sonic, we can do that.
I’d love to see Sonic navigate divorce and alimony.
How many rings does he need for alimony? That doesn’t sound like a film that anyone actually wants to watch.
It does set up a fourth movie without spoiling anything. What video game characters would you like to see?
The exact thing that I hope will be done for the fourth is, therefore, what we tease at the end of this film. There’s a brilliant storyline to be used and it takes our movie in a completely different direction. That’s what makes these exciting. Each one of these films feels almost like it belongs to a different genre. The first one is sort of a buddy comedy. While the second one is more of an adventure like Indiana Jones film. This brings out darkness in Shadow, and this could take on really dark vibe next time around if they choose not to do so. It’s just heaven. Also new people may be fantastic for playing characters and all that kind of stuff that is very interesting.
The Paris Games were just held this summer; so, people are still excited about “Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games” video games. Can you suggest a “Sonic” crossover movie you would like to watch?
There are two things I want. To start with, I love Chris Pratt. He is just incredible; additionally, he will be playing Mario in the ‘Olympic Games’ (which we can’t talk about). What could be really interesting though is if they did a spinoff with super smash bros but it would have to involve so many different studios being nice to one another at the same time. However, the concept of creating our own franchise stand-alone that has numerous characters within it means that we are capable of doing like three, four, five or six different ones and that’s what I’m focused on and that’s what I love. If there was a battle royale involving some characters we all adore in video games because I am a video game nerd myself then yes I’d love it! It looks like Paramount should let me go play it out.
I believe that currently it should be “Sonic 3” and when we finally get to “Sonic 4”, we’ve got a lot of things in mind.
Nintendo is also in the process of making a movie out of the Legend of Zelda series. This means that we are getting close to seeing The Super Smash Bros. film become a reality.
We are almost there with this one. There’s already a Pikachu movie out there. Just think if you could get all these studios (who may often seem like they are in competition with each other) to make one film, but somehow share the profits; that would be amazing!
I love your comedy and enjoyed your “Middleditch and Schwartz” specials on Netflix. But when will we see more comedy specials from you?
“Middleditch and Schwartz” are my favorite things that I have ever done. Right now I have a show “Ben Schwartz and Friends” where luckily, we’ve sold out Radio City, Sydney Opera House, Royal Albert Hall. With Ben Schwartz and Friends I am cooking something up though we’ll see how it goes. It has been in the works for some time now and we’ve reached a stage where we can speak to some people about it to try find a taker or any number of them. In fact, if it pans out it would be really exciting; you would love it if it did. Before everyone else sees what an amazing special this is they should know that for months this is what I’ve been working on hoping that someone might want to put this on their network. As of now, I am not at liberty to discuss, but there are some interesting developments happening behind the scenes which hopefully will come to light very soon.
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