One of the most useful skills an actor can have these days is being able to convincingly interact with a CGI character. This is by no means easy, especially as in many cases they’ll be represented by a tennis ball on a stick, and you won’t see your CGI co-star until you’re at the premiere.
James Marsden did a great job with this on Sonic the Hedgehog and by all accounts has repeated the feat with Sonic the Hedgehog 2. He’s discussed what it’s like to work with ‘Sonic’ in an interview with Digital Spy, saying:
“You’re there and Ben’s not opposite me on the day, but it’s a tennis ball, it’s a piece of tape, sometimes it’s a beanbag if they need to sell the weight of you holding him. I love the process. You have somebody reading Ben’s lines opposite so you can get the rhythm of the scene going. This whole process now, I have the utmost faith in Jeff [Fowler], the director, and Ben as a talent, everybody involved feels like such high-quality human beings first, but then the talents are crazy too.”
But despite this there’s always some awkwardness due to the lack of feedback from a co-star, with Marsden admitting that he often has “no idea” whether the scene is working while shooting it:
“You do feel like you have a great safety net going in, because you can feel a bit naked going into these scenes. ‘Is this working? I have no idea. Does it look like I’m looking at him?’ I like that technical challenge of doing it, and it’s really starting to work now. Live action and animation is tricky, blending those two together. I saw the film for the first time a couple of days ago and it’s like, ‘Man, how do you do this?’
It seems that, like the video games, Sonic the Hedgehog‘s live-action universe is only going to expand its cast of characters. The sequel features both Tails and Knuckles the Echidna, and a leaked post-credits scene teases the arrival of another much-loved fan-favorite character from the Sonic mythos.
Right now, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is reviewing slightly worse than the first movie, though it’s predicted to comfortably beat it at the box office as the 2020 movie had its box office run curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic shuttering theaters. If this does great business, expect the rumors of a Sonic cinematic universe to become a reality. Here’s hoping for a Knuckles’ Chaotix movie starring Vector the Crocodile and the loveable Charmy Bee.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is now in theaters.
