JOHN C. REILLY PROVIDES THE VOICE OF “WRECK-IT RALPH”
Academy Award-nominee John C. Reilly
(“Chicago”) breathes life to Ralph, a heavy-handed wrecking riot with a heart,
in Walt Disney Animation Studios' 3D animated adventure, “Wreck-It Ralph.”
Photo courtesy of Walt Disney Studios |
For
30 years—day in, day out—Wreck-It Ralph has been doing his job as “The Bad Guy”
in the arcade game Fix-It Felix Jr. But it’s getting harder and harder to love
his job when no one seems to like him for doing it. Suffering from a classic
case of Bad-Guy fatigue and hungry for a little wreck-ognition, Ralph embarks
on a wild adventure across an incredible arcade-game universe to prove that
just because he’s a Bad Guy, it doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy.
Reilly
was called on to provide the voice of Ralph. “When we were talking about making
the main character a ‘bad guy,’” says director Rich Moore, “we knew we needed
someone the audience could get behind—support and love—even though he’s kind of
rough around the edges. John inhabits the characters he plays and he connects
to the humanity. He brought a lot of himself to Ralph, too, which is amazing.”
Reilly
actually spent time with the production team, learning about the animation
process, physically acting out certain scenes to provide reference to animators
and contributing his own thoughts on the level of emotion a certain moment
might demand. “After we talked with John, I think everybody felt a much deeper
connection with the project,” says Renato dos Anjos, animation supervisor. “He
really believed in the character and he probably knows Ralph better than
anyone.”
“Wreck-It
Ralph is an amazing character,” says Reilly. “He has a huge heart, but he’s
misguided. He has all the foibles of a real person even though he’s an
arcade-game character. He means well in the beginning, but just goes about it
in all the wrong ways. But in the end, he realizes what a hero really is.”
“He’s
a man-child,” adds head of story Jim Reardon. “He wants to put his bad-guy days
behind him, but it’s not until he starts thinking about somebody other than
himself that he gets what he really needs, which is love—appreciation. A lot of
kids’ movies are about becoming whatever you want to be just because you really
want it, with no strings attached. Ralph's story is a little more
realistic."
In
a film that features so many distinct worlds, it falls on Ralph’s shoulders—as
the protagonist—to tie it all together. “Ralph is Ralph no matter what world he
goes to,” says screenwriter Phil Johnston.
According
to art director Mike Gabriel, Ralph went through more than a few wardrobe
changes. While Felix and the Nicelanders represented civilized society, Ralph
needed to be distinct. “At one point he just had a red shirt and shorts on,”
says Gabriel. “But he’s the bad guy, right? That’s where the plaid shirt came
in—we wanted to make him a MOUNTAIN MAN. Then someone suggested the henley and
I put that on him.”
The
team decided an accent color was in order and gave Ralph a blue-green
undershirt, roughing up the whole look with a five o’clock shadow. Gabriel was
sold. “I said, ‘That works. Now, he’s definitely a mountain man!’”
A
mountain man with really big hands. Dos Anjos and his team had to figure out
how to navigate Ralph’s hands around other characters and the surrounding set.
“They’re so massive, they were a huge challenge for us to animate because any
time he moved, they’d crash into everything that was around him—which is
typical Ralph, right?”
If
only they’d had Felix around to fix the damage.
in
Disney Digital 3D and regular theaters, “Wreck-It Ralph” is distributed by Walt
Disney Studios Motion Pictures International through Columbia Pictures in
Disney Digital 3D and regular theaters.
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