When we first saw Sonic the Hedgehog’s initial trailer back in 2019, wܫith Sonic’s human teeth and Gangster’s Paradise blaring over the frankly upsetting footage of a weird blue spiky thing th🍌at purported to be Sonic, few would have expected a sequel to be hitting theatres in 2022. After a quick, hugely successful redesign, fans ended up welcoming the Sonic movie into their hearts. Even though it’s not entirely loyal to the game by plot, it’s full of Easter Eggs, fan service, and little nods that make it so endearing.

Agent Stone is one of the ways the movies take some liberties with existing lore. Stone is not part of the universe fans know at all, but fits seamlessly into the world as Robotnik’s long suffering yet alwaꦯys faithful assistant. I spoke to Lee Majdoub, the actor behind Stone, about how that affection for the source material was cultivated on set.

Related: Doctor Eggman And Age🍒nt Stone Need To Hurry Up And Kiss Already

“I grew up playing Sonic on the Sega Genesis, and Sonic two was like, my favourite game growing up,” he tells me. “I used to watch the cartoons too, and then once I got the movie, it brought back all those amazing memories of being a kid, it being my favourite game. I always consider the audience, I always think of the fans, and I always want to do them justice. The interesting thing with playing Agent Stone is that he's an original character, it was more along the lines of okay, ‘what kind of flavour do we bring to a sidekick to Robotnik?’”

sonic close up
via Paramount

Robotnik and Stone’s relationship is one of the film’s highlights, leading to shipping, fanfiction, and fan art. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Majdoub has 🍨seen it all, and he&rs🌼quo;s a fan. One of the key things in their relationship is the latte Stone makes for𒊎 Robotnik, something that was developed after Majdoub did some research on Reddit.

“The latte scene in the first movie was [already] there,” he says. “But through talking with Jim [Carrey, who plays Robotnik] the night before filming, we said ‘what would be a funny drink?’ I went on Reddit and I looked up the most pretentious coffee orders, and a barista had said that someone had asked for a latte with Austrian goat milk, so we added the element of like the steamed Austrian goat milk. Then it was written into the second movie, and I think it was a perfect little nod to the video game and the cartoon, the Mean Bean Machine [the name of a Sonic-licensed Puyo Puyo game]. I think it was such an amazing little nod and perfect for a coffee shop. It's a great name for a coffee shop.”

Sonic 2 Review

This work with Carrey was key to the film’s success, and is a hallmark of Carrey’s career. A famously improv-heavy performer, Sonic adds an extra complication in that Carrey and Majdoub were recording lines before Sonic and Knuckles were added in, meaning extra considerations had to be made. “The thing with Jim is he's so detail oriented, and he's so specific,” Majdoub says. “He comes with a lot of ideas. We'll hash it out, get some great stuff, and then it starts to evolve a little bit more, but even within his improv, he's so detail oriented. If a mark needs to be hit for CGI reasons, he's always going to hit it. We're fortunate in that the dialogue is kind of pre written, but then with Jim's ability to improvise, we had a great guy off camera reading all of the Knuckles, Tails, and Sonic lines who's a great improviser as well, so we would be able to feed off that a little bit too.

“With Sonic, they've gone about it so well. Paramount [have] cast diverse, and they're not screaming from the mountaintops about it,” he says. “They're like, ‘this is the world, this is how it is, this is our story, we don't need to explain it to you’. What I love about it is they're giving people opportunities. They're showing what the world looks like. For me personally, just coming up in Hollywood, I think we're definitely going in the right direction. I think there's still a lot of work to be done. It's nice to see a lot of communities getting their time, but we're still pushing hard. I think there's a lot of work to be done about Middle Eastern representation, because I think we're still quite seen as angry or dangerous. It's nice to see, you know, someone like Rami Malik or Mena Massoud getting to that point. A huge moment for me was just seeing Paramount have that Agent Stone poster, right with my name on it.

Sonic 2 Review

“It was quite emotional too, because I didn't have that growing up, I didn't have a brown man up on a poster or starring in movies. It's thinking about kids now and being able to see that and realise that it is attainable. You can do it. You just got to go for it and trust your heart and your soul.”

While Stone is a villain, he’s not the typical Middle Eastern villain that Majdoub and so many others have seen in Hollywood, he’s not a terrorist nor an insurgent, and is not defined by his ethnicity. “It’s background, we're not making a meal out of it,” he says. “I think if a character doesn't need to be from a particular diverse background, then give all of us a shot at it. I didn't think about having a person of colour playing a character that's caring and loving, even though he is a villain. But I don't think a lot of people perceive him [as a villain], they’re like ‘I just like this guy, I'm rooting for him’, so that's really cool.”

You can see Agent Stone, and the rest of the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 cast, in theatres now.

Next: Sonic The Hedgehog 2 Review: Gotta Go Fast (Aga♌in)