The Bad Guys' Zazie Beetz And Lilly Singh See Themselves In Their Animated Characters - Exclusive
Today, the casts of animated films are just as stacked with movie stars as the latest live-action blockbuster. Given the big names that are often involved in animated projects, it makes sense that the artists creating the characters would incorporate the voice actors' looks, facial expressions, and body language into their creations. From Robin Williams as Genie in "Aladdin" to Jack Black as Po in "Kung Fu Panda" to Tina Fey as 22 in "Soul," part of the fun of animated films is witnessing famous actors bringing characters to life both through their voice work and the inspiration they provide to the animators.
Like many animated films, DreamWorks' "The Bad Guys" has a cast bursting with notable performers, including Sam Rockwell, Craig Robinson, and Awkwafina. While many of them are voicing anthropomorphic animals, viewers may notice that their influence on their characters can be seen as well as heard. In an exclusive interview with Looper, Zazie Beetz, who plays Diane Foxington in "The Bad Guys," and Lilly Singh, who plays Tiffany Fluffit, confessed they see elements of themselves in their animated characters too.
Their characters show some of their physical acting as well
Zazie Beetz noted that while she can't be sure how much the animators designed Diane to resemble her, her live-action acting while voicing her character likely provided plenty of inspiration. "I don't remember exactly what I was doing with every take," Beetz reflected. "I feel like you do have to become quite physically expressive in order to really get everything you can out of your voice. You definitely get much more cartoonish, I suppose, or animated. They record all of it so that they can use some of what you're doing. I assume [they brought] a bunch [of that physical performance into the animation], but I don't know."
Meanwhile, famed YouTuber Lilly Singh believes the animators looked at both the recordings of her in the voice booth and her YouTube videos to design her exuberant newscaster character. "Some of my facial expressions, definitely I can see in Tiffany," Singh shared. "A lot of her energy of how she moves close to camera and away from camera, that's honestly how, if you look at my earlier YouTube videos, how I edit them as well ... When I posted [a clip of the character online], a lot of my fans had said, 'She looks exactly like you and she acts like you.'"
"The Bad Guys" is now playing exclusively in theaters.