LIAM NEESON, WILL FERRELL LEAD VOICE CAST OF “THE LEGO MOVIE”
Joining
Chris Pratt in the voice cast of the first-ever, full-length theatrical LEGO®
adventure “The LEGO Movie” are Academy Award-honorees Liam Neeson and Morgan
Freeman, comic leading man Will Ferrell and talented actress Elizabeth Banks.
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| Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. |
The
latter plays the female master builder Wyldstyle. Banks says, “I enjoyed being
an action hero. Wyldstyle is trying to live up to her name. She has a nice
rebellious streak in her, which is something I think most kids can relate to,
and she’s pushing the envelope a bit to establish her own way in life and her
own look. What I loved about the character is that she’s smart and strong. She
has kick-butt powers and a lot of sass and she’s no damsel in distress. She’s
there to save the day.”
While
recording her dialogue, “I rarely wore shoes,” Banks reveals. “I was usually
barefoot because I like to jump around and move. You can’t make noise over your
vocals, so I have to take my shoes off, especially in an action movie. There’s
a lot of punching and jumping and running, and I did all of that behind the
microphone.”
Will
Ferrell who plays Lord Business calls his character “a real control freak. Lord
Business runs everything and doesn’t want any creative expression or anyone
building anything that’s not on the instruction worksheet. He’s built the
entire universe just the way he wants it, just perfect, and it drives him crazy
that people come around and dare to change things.”
Lord
Business is also remarkably tall for a LEGO minifigure, notes Ferrell. “In his
public persona as President Business he has a more pleasant look, very
corporate, three-piece-suit and a tie and not a hair out of place. However,
when he reveals his true self, the maniacal Lord Business, he wears an
impressive cape and 20-foot-tall boots—or, the 20-foot equivalent in LEGO
terms—so he can look even more evil and terrifying.”
Lord
Business’s number one enforcer is the alternately intimidating and wacky Bad
Cop/Good Cop, a swivel-headed minifigure with a split personality, each of
which is voiced by Liam Neeson.
“What’s
so fresh about Bad Cop/Good Cop is that we literally see both sides of him,”
says producer Dan Lin. “He’s Bad Cop whenever he’s executing Lord Business’s
orders, and that’s the straight-ahead tough guy we’re used to seeing in the
movies. Then he’s got the Good Cop side too, so he’s fighting with himself. One
side of his face has the mirrored sunglasses and gritted teeth and is very
stern, and the opposite side is much softer, with a smile, and Liam gives each
of them their own identity.”
“When
I saw some of the animation, and bearing in mind the history of New York
police, I thought he should be Irish, and specifically from the North of
Ireland,” says Neeson, who gave Bad Cop that particular accent, while bringing
a distinctly different inflection to his better half. “The Good Cop, he’s Irish
too, but he’s a wee bit more feisty.”
Neeson
and Ferrell acted out some of their interactions and improvised together, via
headphones, while Neeson was in a recording studio in New York and Ferrell was
in Los Angeles. “Liam’s measured and mostly serious delivery as Bad Cop
juxtaposed against Will’s outsized comedy take on Lord Business is hilarious,”
says Lin.
In
Morgan Freeman’s case, it’s his famously rich and authoritative voice that
makes his characterization of the presumably wise wizard Vitruvius so
laughable. Whether in his dramatic roles or noted documentary narrations,
Freeman’s delivery unfailingly lends an air of truth and substance to whatever
is being spoken. However, audiences will quickly grasp that not everything
Vitruvius says can be trusted—or even makes much sense.
An
ancient hippie sage clad in sandals and a tie-dyed shirt barely visible under
his voluminous white beard, “Vitruvius talks a good game but he’s a little hazy
on the details: like the prophecy and how, exactly, they’re going to stop Lord
Business,” Miller concedes. “It’s almost as if he’s making it up as he goes
along.”
Longtime
fans of Freeman’s work will be surprised that this is the first time he has
applied his resonant voice to an animated movie.
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