Chris Evans, best known as Captain America from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has voiced the iconic character in animation – Buzz Lightyear – in Pixar’s latest release Lightyear. The film’s makers – director Angus MacLane and producer Galyn Susman tell us what made him the perfect voice for the Toy Story character.
Talking to News18 during a virtual junket, MacLane, who has made his feature directorial debut with the Toy Story spin-off film Lightyear, said Evans brought in the Marvel superhero quality while voicing Buzz.
“Buzz is a really iconic character. And if you’re going to change the character, you don’t want to have an impersonation of Tim Allen (who voices Buzz Lightyear for the Toy Story franchise), that’s a separate thing.
“For us, Chris provided a tunnel connection to where we were going, which was like action hero of a Marvel movie, basically, that kind of tone of a Marvel movie. The decision was to cast somebody that would have the gravitas but also have the comedy chops where the comedy wouldn’t disrupt the stakes of the film. We saw Chris Evans do that quite a bit in the Marvel Universe. So that was a good example for us,” he explained.
Galyn Susman added, “He can definitely do superhero. That’s clear. He can play a very dramatic role and have that kind of gravitas. And he does humor really well.He does the out of step kind of humor which is self-deprecating, without coming off stupid. That’s really hard to do. And when you want all of that in one person, Chris was pretty obvious for us. He’s a natural for that.”
The film’s makers were challenged with ensuring Buzz Lightyear was recognizable but clearly not the toy audiences are familiar with. The artists working on his look paid a visit to NASA. The final looks of Buzz were a mashup of NASA and general military inspiration.
“We all took a trip to NASA. Originally, the design of the character was slightly influenced, had like a little bit of a NASA flavor to it. And there and so kind of jumping off from that we wanted to make the technology in the film have a real tactile feeling, not be completely NASA, but have that kind of manufactured, chunky feel. So we went to NASA to just figure out what that would feel like, what was the reality? And then we can build a film around the basis of that design reality,” said MacLane.
“One of the things that we learned at NASA was that the more important something is, the bigger it is, so that the astronaut doesn’t miss it. And so it was this really interesting hierarchy of knobs and buttons and dials and everything. When you see all of that together, and you get to feel the texture of that, and it feels very true. It’s like, oh, we want to capture that, because I feel like I will be in the cockpit with Buzz. I will feel it with him and it’ll just add that much more excitement for the film,” added Susman.
Lightyear follows the story of Buzz Lightyear, who along with his Star Command friends not only gets stranded on a planet but also realizes that they have traveled 62 years in the future. With a lot of adventure, drama, intrigue, and a quest to demolish evil forces, Lightyear gives us a peek into the life of the space ranger whose one of the most lovable Toy Story characters. The film released in theatres in India on June 17.
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