Simon Pegg and Cast Talk ‘The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild’
We speak with voice actors Simon Pegg and Justina Machado, as well as director John C. Donkin and producer Lori Forte about their new ‘Ice Age’ movie, which will premiere on Disney+.
Simon Pegg as Buck Wild in 'The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild'
Premiering on Disney+ beginning January 28th is ‘The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild,’ which is the sixth film in the ‘Ice Age’ franchise. Directed by John C. Donkin, the movie stars Simon Pegg (‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout’) as the voice of the title character, and also features the voice work of Justina Machado (‘The Purge: Anarchy'), Utkarsh Ambudkar (‘Free Guy’), Vincent Tong (’Cop and a Half: New Recruit’), and Aaron Harris ('Returned').
After deciding to leave their home for a new adventure, Crash (Vincent Tong) and Eddie (Aaron Harris) discover the Lost World and reunite with Buck Wild (Pegg), who seems to be happy living as a recluse. But when dinosaurs begin to threaten the Lost World’s existence, Crash and Eddie team with Buck, and his old friend Zee (Machado), to put a stop to them for good.
Moviefone recently had the opportunity to speak with actors Simon Pegg and Justina Machado, as well as director John C. Donkin and producer Lori Forte, about their work on ‘The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild’.
Below you can read our full interview with Simon Pegg, or you can watch the full set of interviews in the video player above.
Moviefone: To begin with, what is it like for you to return to the ‘Ice Age’ franchise as Buck Wild after first appearing in ‘Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs,’ and having the opportunity to explore the character in his own film?
Simon Pegg: It's like slipping into a pair of very comfy shoes. I really love playing Buck. He's there in my muscle memory the whole time. I think that first experience of doing him in ‘Dawn of the Dinosaurs’ was so intense. It was such a big deal for me because I was joining the franchise and I figured that would just be it.
Then, he was invited back for ‘Collision Course,’ and now this. I always would say to Lori Forte, the producer, at the end of every session that we did with Buck, that we should do more of this. We should do like a Buck spinoff. And here we are, so I guess my wish came true.
MF: When we first see Buck in the new movie, he has been living by himself and seems to have gone a bit stir crazy. Can you talk about your character’s mental state when the movie begins?
SP: Well, Buck was always pitched to me as a cross between Indiana Jones and Colonel Kurtz from ‘Apocalypse Now.’ I think in the interim between when we first met him in this film, he has actually had a period of time where he met some other creatures. He was hanging out with Zee, his sort of girlfriend as it were, this equivalent to him, a female, but she's as resourceful, as courageous, and more sane than he is. They'd formed this little pact where they were going to look after the Lost World.
In that time, they fell out, and so when Crash and Eddie, the possums come to the Lost World, they find Buck back to being a loner. He lives by himself and he talks to inanimate things. Part of the film is about encouraging Buck to re-embrace his sociability, which I think we're all having to do now, or hopefully we'll have to do at some point, when we come out of lockdown.
MF: I know you love comic books, and there is a real superhero team vs. super villain vibe to this movie. Can you talk about that aspect of the movie?
SP: I think obviously the superheroes are very much in vogue at the moment. There's a lot of superhero content out there. I think superheroes, in some respects, are the ultimate sort of aspirational characters because you simply cannot ever be them because they're beyond us. They're preternatural.
But in this film, Buck says to be a superhero, you just need courage and resourcefulness. It kind of makes their superhero idea a little bit more relatable and a little bit more something that people watching the movie can be themselves, particularly children. So, I think that's a nice little message for the era in which superheroes seem to dominate.
MF: The voice you use for Buck is very specific. Was it difficult to find it again for this movie, or does Buck’s voice just live inside your head always now?
SP: Oh, he definitely just lives inside me, and I've had to do the voice several times between films for kids who don't believe that I'm Buck. I remember a little girl came up to me on holiday and told me that her mom said that I was Buck, and she didn't believe it, because I didn't look like a weasel. She genuinely was like, "Prove it." So, I did. Then after that, every time she saw me on holiday, she'd go, "Hi Buck." I'd have to go, "Hello little girl," like this. So, it's something that stayed with me the whole time.
