The hit family comedy The Addams Family 2 is now available to rent digitally. The star-studded cast of the first animated film returns and they’re joined by Bill Hader as the villainous Cyrus, who tries to convince Wednesday that he’s her real father.
“Everyone’s favorite spooky family is back!” reads the synopsis. “Distraught that their children are growing up, Morticia and Gomez decide to cram Wednesday, Pugsley, and Uncle Fester into their haunted camper for one last family vacation. What could possibly go wrong?”
ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with The Addams Family 2 star Bill Hader about his role of Cyrus, how his prep for voice acting has changed, and his relationship with the series.
Tyler Treese: This is such a fun role. I was really curious about your history with The Addams Family. It has been relevant for so many decades and generations. Did you grow up watching the show?
Bill Hader: Yeah. When it was on Nickelodeon or I think Nick at Nite, I would watch it then. I feel like it was on that and other things, but yeah, it was just a new tone that kind of dark. I mean, if you look at just the elements of it, it shouldn’t work as a comedy and it really does. It was like a new voice. It was a new kind of move that then you saw other people do.
I’m sure it’s exciting, just from a personal standpoint, since you did watch it, but joining a franchise that has been iconic for so long. It dates back to like 1938 and has been iconic since the sixties. How exciting is it to just be a part of this franchise?
That’s really exciting. I grew up, I was the perfect age for those Barry Sonnenfeld movies in the nineties. So I really remember watching those and loving those and then watching this version and liking it. So I was really excited when they asked me to be a part of the second one. I was into playing kind of a mad scientist. That’s fun.
You were in Sausage Party as well. Did it make for a natural fit to reunite with the directors here?
Conrad, yeah. It was very specific, and a very specific kind of part, you know, so there wasn’t a lot of… Sometimes you do these things and it’s like, “Well, what is it?” You know? And you’re trying to like, figure out what it is, who the person is. So this one, it was really clear just from seeing drawings of it and reading the script.
Yeah. Playing the mad scientist archetype has to be fun. What was the process of really finding the voice for Cyrus?
It was really Conrad, the director, was just talking me through it and I mean, you just say mad scientist and you look at the drawing and I just did a voice. You’re like, yeah, that guy. So it was, it was pretty easy. The hardest thing was I did it during the pandemic. So I was underneath the comforter in my bedroom holding the comforter up and I had a microphone, the script on my phone, and I was just like this recording it.
That’s certainly a unique recording session. Probably never had one like that.
Yeah, pretty strange. Now I guess that’s the way I’m only going to do it. I’ve got to do it in my bedroom. That was great.
I really liked just how Cyrus is very manipulative and he can be charming if he wants to. Like how he interacts with Wednesday is very interesting. Can you talk about that side of the character and just how he tries to win over Wednesday here?
Well, it’s pretty disturbing what he’s doing. He’s basically trying to tell her that her family isn’t her family, but that was a kind of fun part of the character. It’s that duplicity, but it’s within that, that Addam’s Family type of tone. So it’s still fun and it’s very arch, and it was nice to be able to play. When it’s live-action, it’s kind of hard to get away with like a really arch character, and it was fun to do that in this one.
You’ve done so much voiceover work over the years, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, you did some great voiceover work in Grand Theft Auto 4, and for South Park. What lessons have you really learned over time to better yourself when doing voiceover work and the minutia that comes with that?
Well, it’s really exhausting. That’s what no one tells you. I get really tired because you’re just yelling for a couple of hours, four hours of just sheer screaming because you have to project. You’ll do a scene and they’ll say that was great, but the character you’re talking to is on the other side of the room and you go, “Oh, okay.” So, it’s kind of trying to keep your energy, and don’t drink coffee because I would drink coffee a lot and it dries out your vocal chords. So, yeah. Tea and honey.
So how have you adjusted to doing these long days over time? Do you have a specific prep method that you do going into?
I think it’s just like drinking water and avoiding stuff that’ll make my voice raspy, but I’m not very [perceptive], I make the same mistake over and over again. It isn’t until a sound engineer is like, “You know that coffee kind of makes your voice scratchy,” and I go, “Really? Oh.” And this is after doing this for like 10 years. So I’m not that perceptive. So once I switched to tea and honey, I’m like, “Ah. Now I get it.”
This film just has such a stacked cast. How exciting is it being with Snoop Dogg and Charlize Theron and all these others in the same film?
It’s amazing. Maybe I’ll meet them one day. You never meet each other. Maybe one of these days I’ll get to meet these guys.
There are so many good scenes in the film. Were any of them particularly fun to record. Did any recording session stick out?
There’s one I don’t want to ruin because it’s the end of the movie, but I have to do a lot of different noises. That was a lot of fun and we did that one a lot. But just getting to play the kind of arch scientist guy was just fun. Again, it’s a thing you don’t really get a chance to play with in live-action.
