ComingSoon spoke to Sonic the Hedgehog 2 star Lee Majdoub, who plays the villainous sidekick Agent Stone, about the hit film, working with Jim Carrey, and much more. The film will be available on Digital 5/24 and on 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD on August 9.
“After settling in Green Hills, Sonic (Ben Schwartz) is eager to prove he has what it takes to be a true hero,” says the official synopsis. “His test comes when Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) returns, this time with a new partner, Knuckles (Idris Elba), in search of an emerald that has the power to destroy civilizations. Sonic teams up with his own sidekick, Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey), and together they embark on a globe-trotting journey to find the emerald before it falls into the wrong hands.”
Tyler Treese: Talk me through how Agent Stone has evolved as a character over time. I feel like you have so much freedom to twist him in different directions since he’s an original character.
Lee Majdoub: Yeah, actually the fact that he’s an original character has given us a lot of freedom with him. Absolutely. I think it’s also [that] I personally felt a little bit of pressure, because I was trying to figure out where does he fit in? And I think many people know in the first movie he was kind of just someone for Robotnik to talk to. We didn’t really know who he was and how the relationship was going to progress. And it was only until we started to get on set and have a little bit of fun, and Jim [Carrey] was coming up with ideas, and then Jeff [Fowler] would get more ideas and then I’d get some ideas and it was just this amazing collaborative process. And then for the second one, it was just, how is Stone dealing with the fact that Robotnik’s gone? And a little piece of Stone has gone as well. I think he’s just making due and just following the doctor’s orders in anticipation for his return,
Jim Carrey’s such a legend and a real master of his craft. I imagine someone like you already has really good comic timing, then you can watch his work and pick up on a lot of little things that really elevate him from the rest. So what makes Jim Carrey so great and so funny on film?
Wow. Ah, man, that’s such a loaded question. He’s just great at what he does. I try to absorb everything like a sponge. So I grew up, like so many of us, on Jim’s stuff, and being such a big fan of his, respecting the person as well as the actor. But seeing him on set and do his thing, he’s just … so much attention to detail. He’s so specific. He cares so much about character and story, and development too. So he never wants anything to feel stagnant, never wants anything to be repetitive, always wants the character to be evolving as he’s talked about. And for me, it was just, be there, be aware, be prepared, and just feed off of what he gives me.
Jim has spoken about this possibly being his last role and, selfishly, I hope that isn’t the case, but I imagine it would be such an amazing honor to share the screen with him for his final role?
Yeah. I mean, the fan in me as well, like all selfishly I’m like, “Well, no, I don’t want it to happen.” But I get it. You know what I mean? Like he doesn’t owe anybody anything anymore. It’s been such an amazing career and he’s given so much. Yeah, I haven’t really thought about the fact that, oh man, I worked with him on potentially his last thing. Like that’s pretty crazy, especially being such a big fan of his and stuff. So definitely an honor, for sure.
There’s such a great bond shown in the film between Robotnik and Stone. Over the course of these two films, how much time have you had to work with Jim offscreen and how has that chemistry developed over the course of filming two movies?
Well, I mean, anything offscreen is pretty much like while we’re on set, you know what I mean? A little bit of chatting here and there, but I think it’s just like we got to know each other on the first one, working together and then just chats here and there between scenes or between setups and takes. I think it’s just trust. I think we’re really fortunate that, I mean … I trust him with like the amount of stuff that Robotnik does to Stone. As an actor, I felt so safe. Like I was saying, he’s so specific and he’s so detailed, and I think it was just a lot of trust, a lot of faith in each other. I think we know what we both bring to the table and that he’s not going to let me fail, you know what I mean? He’s always there. It’s just evolved. Coming on to the second one, I think what was nice is we knew where we left off on the first, when we knew how we worked together, really enjoy each other’s company. So I think we just built on that.
The Sonic fandom is just so passionate and they’ve begun shipping Robotnik and Agent Stone. How wild is it that people are writing fan fiction and creating all this art of you? It has to be surreal.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely surreal and some incredible artwork too. I try to share as much as I can, just because I love supporting artists and I think there’s so many artists out there who don’t get credit for their work or someone puts their name on it just because they found it online and they tweaked something. So I try to find the original art pieces and make sure that people are credited for it. But yeah, it’s, it’s incredible how much fans have taken to Stone and taken to just coming up with their own ideas of what’s going on with Robotnik and Stone. And I’m like, “you know what? I’m all for it!” Like they’ve asked me, they’re like, “how do you feel like, is it weird?” And I’m like, “you know what, as long as you keep it positive and it’s creative and fun, go with it, have fun, create whatever you want, do your fan fictions, do your artwork. I’m all for it.”
These films have such great voiceover and CGI. So I was curious, what it’s like when you finally see these scenes back for the first time and suddenly you’re interacting with Iris Elba and talking hedgehogs, All these crazy animals. What is that first viewing like?
When I first saw that, that scene where Knuckles pops in and crushes my hand … so I remember how we filmed it and you know, there’s different stages. They had the lifesize model in there so we could get an idea of spacing and everything and where eyeline is, and where’s my hand going to go. And then they take that model out of the scene and then it’s all kind of like remember where your place was and have some fun and do different things. And you see it come together and it’s still like so amazing to me, the process that goes into it. I was recently watching some behind the scenes stuff and I messaged our director, Jeff, and I was like, “I’m still like such a wide-eyed child when I’m watching the behind the scenes and seeing the process and the amount of work that the teams put into it.” It’s such a lovely reminder of how many people it takes to make these amazing movies like Sonic and just constantly blown away by all of it.
You worked on two of my favorite indie games, The Fall series. Can you talk about how that came about and how your experience was working on gaming?
I’ve been trying to get more and more into voicework, and I’m a big gamer myself. I love all of it. I’m playing No Man’s Sky again right now. But yeah, The Fall came, you know … [I] auditioned and met the team, and [it was] really fun to figure out the voice of the One and just really trying to figure out where they are, and they explained the world to me. So it was a lot of feeling it out and trusting. Especially the first game. I didn’t know what I was walking into and trying to learn about the world that they built, which was incredible. I love that series of games.
