When voice actor/comedian Larry the Cable Guy (real name Daniel Lawrence Whitney) was handed the script for Cars 2, he knew he had to step up his game. While the first film followed hotshot race car Lightning McQueen as he learned to slow down and appreciate life, the sequel follows Larry's character Tow Mater as he becomes embroiled in international espionage. Instead of simply playing the goofy sidekick, Larry had to find new dimensions to his tow truck character.
Suite 101 sat down with Larry the Cable Guy to discuss his role, his working relationship with director John Lasseter, and share a spoiler or two.
Suite 101: If you were to describe Tow Mater to someone who hadnt seen any of the Cars films, how would you do so?
Larry the Cable Guy: Thoughtful, caring, lovable, funny, rusty, leaky! (everyone laughs) No, he doesnt leak.
S101: Sssh, spoilers!
Larry: (laughs) I would describe him as anyones best buddy.
S101: Cars 2 is a lot more about Tow Mater than it is about Lightning McQueen. How did you approach the character differently for this film?
Larry: Ive been doing this character onstage forever. Larry the Cable Guy, thats what Mater is, you know? Ive been doing that voice forever, its not hard to do the voice. Different from the first one: theres so many ranges of emotion in the second film. In the first one, Mater was just this happy-go-lucky tow truck, and every line was like, (goes into Tow Maters voice) Yall pretty good with this lawyer stuff! You owe me $8,000. It was all funny quips, the whole thing.
This one, Mater was yelling and Mater got mad, he got shot at. I had to pull from a lot of resources to make those lines jump out. When youre recording, youre not playing off anybody, youre just playing off yourself and a microphone. So, if you want to deliver a line thats gonna make somebody cry, you gotta figure it out in your head. You gotta think of something to make your voice adapt to that.
Mater doesnt yell at anybody, hes a nice guy, but here hes gotta yell at somebody so when I was doing the yelling I had to do it in a way that didnt come across as Mater being a jerk. Hes gotta be justified in doing what hes doing.
Those were the challenging parts. There were times when Id think of something and tear up a little bit, but it made for what I needed to do. As soon as I did that, John (Lasseter) was like, Oh, thats so good! Thats the one were gonna use . . . wanna hanky? (everybody laughs)
It was really cool; I learned a lot. I think I grew as a voice-over talent; its not just reading words, you have to show emotion in the words, you have to say them a certain way. I learned a lot, especially when it came to different attitudes. All the joke lines are easy because I tell jokes all the time, but its the ones where youre serious and youre sad . . . those are the hard ones.
S101: Why dont you walk us through the voice-over process?
Larry: I get the schedule, when they want to use me, I go over and meet with John, eat your breakfast! (laughs) You go into the studio: theres a glass partition, put in a quarter and a girl comes out! (everyone laughs) Sorry, thats a different booth!
Its just you and a microphone, theres John and (co-director Brad Lewis) in the control room. You get all the guys at the board and working the microphones and a couple of the animators sketching (writers note: animators will sketch the voice-over artists expressions when he's performing and use them when animating the character). Theres like an audience of eight, and John will go through the whole scene of what were doing that day, Heres the scene where you first meet Finn McMissile, youre running through the airport . . . Johnll read the first line and away you go. You dont see any other characters, you dont see any animation, nothing.
Then, about three sessions in, theyll show you about a 30-second completed scene so you can see what its looking like, who youre talking to . . . but thats about it.
S101: You were just working with John, then?
Larry: John and Brad, yes.
S101: What were they like working together, what was it like working with them?
Larry: In a word, awesome. I love working with them, thats why Pixar is so good. Theyre fun to work with, theyre the best at what they do, so youre working with top-notch folks.
And no one wants to disappoint John Lasseter because hes a great guy. Working with him is like doing a project for your dad and, if you screw up, your dads gonna be disappointed. You dont wanna disappoint the guy, you really dont. So everybody gives 110% and thats why Pixar turns out great movies.
Working with them is like working with brothers.
(In Part #2 of this interview, Larry the Cable Guy shares more about voicing his character, and where Tow Mater gets his good looks.)
Suite 101 sat down with Larry the Cable Guy to discuss his role, his working relationship with director John Lasseter, and share a spoiler or two.
Suite 101: If you were to describe Tow Mater to someone who hadnt seen any of the Cars films, how would you do so?
Larry the Cable Guy: Thoughtful, caring, lovable, funny, rusty, leaky! (everyone laughs) No, he doesnt leak.
S101: Sssh, spoilers!
Larry: (laughs) I would describe him as anyones best buddy.
S101: Cars 2 is a lot more about Tow Mater than it is about Lightning McQueen. How did you approach the character differently for this film?
Larry: Ive been doing this character onstage forever. Larry the Cable Guy, thats what Mater is, you know? Ive been doing that voice forever, its not hard to do the voice. Different from the first one: theres so many ranges of emotion in the second film. In the first one, Mater was just this happy-go-lucky tow truck, and every line was like, (goes into Tow Maters voice) Yall pretty good with this lawyer stuff! You owe me $8,000. It was all funny quips, the whole thing.
This one, Mater was yelling and Mater got mad, he got shot at. I had to pull from a lot of resources to make those lines jump out. When youre recording, youre not playing off anybody, youre just playing off yourself and a microphone. So, if you want to deliver a line thats gonna make somebody cry, you gotta figure it out in your head. You gotta think of something to make your voice adapt to that.
Mater doesnt yell at anybody, hes a nice guy, but here hes gotta yell at somebody so when I was doing the yelling I had to do it in a way that didnt come across as Mater being a jerk. Hes gotta be justified in doing what hes doing.
Those were the challenging parts. There were times when Id think of something and tear up a little bit, but it made for what I needed to do. As soon as I did that, John (Lasseter) was like, Oh, thats so good! Thats the one were gonna use . . . wanna hanky? (everybody laughs)
It was really cool; I learned a lot. I think I grew as a voice-over talent; its not just reading words, you have to show emotion in the words, you have to say them a certain way. I learned a lot, especially when it came to different attitudes. All the joke lines are easy because I tell jokes all the time, but its the ones where youre serious and youre sad . . . those are the hard ones.
S101: Why dont you walk us through the voice-over process?
Larry: I get the schedule, when they want to use me, I go over and meet with John, eat your breakfast! (laughs) You go into the studio: theres a glass partition, put in a quarter and a girl comes out! (everyone laughs) Sorry, thats a different booth!
Its just you and a microphone, theres John and (co-director Brad Lewis) in the control room. You get all the guys at the board and working the microphones and a couple of the animators sketching (writers note: animators will sketch the voice-over artists expressions when he's performing and use them when animating the character). Theres like an audience of eight, and John will go through the whole scene of what were doing that day, Heres the scene where you first meet Finn McMissile, youre running through the airport . . . Johnll read the first line and away you go. You dont see any other characters, you dont see any animation, nothing.
Then, about three sessions in, theyll show you about a 30-second completed scene so you can see what its looking like, who youre talking to . . . but thats about it.
S101: You were just working with John, then?
Larry: John and Brad, yes.
S101: What were they like working together, what was it like working with them?
Larry: In a word, awesome. I love working with them, thats why Pixar is so good. Theyre fun to work with, theyre the best at what they do, so youre working with top-notch folks.
And no one wants to disappoint John Lasseter because hes a great guy. Working with him is like doing a project for your dad and, if you screw up, your dads gonna be disappointed. You dont wanna disappoint the guy, you really dont. So everybody gives 110% and thats why Pixar turns out great movies.
Working with them is like working with brothers.
(In Part #2 of this interview, Larry the Cable Guy shares more about voicing his character, and where Tow Mater gets his good looks.)