Why The Cast Of Sonic The Hedgehog Looks So Familiar
Ever since we first heard that the blue blur himself was coming to the big screen we've been ... worried. Video game movies are infamous for failing. Would Sonic the Hedgehog be able to break the curse? It doesn't really look like it, but as much as we've complained about the CGI and Sonic's redesign, we can't really object to the cast. Sonic's look maybe questionable, but his voice fits him like the gloves that he is conspicuously missing.
Trailers always manage to generate hype or dashed hopes, and the latest Sonic the Hedgehog trailer is no exception. After being teased with glimpses of Sonic, we finally got a good look at him and his human companions. A far cry from the infamous Sonic '06's Final Fantasy-esque look, our principal characters are army men, agents, government spooks, and villainous doctors. Sonic's new best friend is a rural cop that's in over his head in this fast-paced, funny take on an old favorite. You may have noticed a surprising amount of familiar faces in the all new trailer.
Jim Carrey - Dr. Ivo Robotnik
Far from the only big name on this production but certainly the most well known is the illustrious comedy genius Jim Carrey. His presence on the set of Sonic the Hedgehog has long been buzzed about, especially with the knowledge that he would be playing the iconic villain Dr. Ivo Robotnik or Doctor Eggman.
Carrey's catapult to fame started with comedies like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) and Dumb and Dumber (1994). Before his award-winning performance as the titular character on The Truman Show (1998), he dabbled in the dastardly. In 1995's Batman Forever he played the campy, quizzatical, and sadistic Riddler. Ben Stiller cast him as a sociopathic, obsessive cable guy in The Cable Guy (1996).
So although we usually think of Carrey in hilarious or even heartfelt roles, he has the versatility to be bad, something he shows off in the new trailer. Dr. Robotnik is arrogant, decked out in patented super villain black and red, and kind of weird. We get glimpses of him at various levels of derangement, the final shot featuring a frizzy mustache and Eggman's signature goggles. Thankfully, he's not in a egg-shaped fat suit.
James Marsden - Tom Wachowski
James Marsden has been playing handsome, blue-eyed hunks for years. He got his first role in a 1993 TV movie called In the Line of Duty: Ambush in Waco, but broke out with his part in X-Men (2000) covering up his baby blues to play Scott Summers, better known as Cyclops. He reprised the role in X2: X-Men United (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). He was by no means typecast as a broody dude with laser vision, however. He had well-received romantic roles as Lon (who Allie should have stayed with) in The Notebook (2004) and Prince Edward in Enchanted (2007).
More recently his claim to fame has been via his performance as a tragic cowboy robot named Teddy Flood in HBO's hit series Westworld (2016). That and the epic Interstellar spoof ad that Taco Bell proudly produced, Taco Bell: Nacho Fries – Retrieval (2019). In Sonic the Hedgehog he will be playing a small town police officer, Tom Wachowski, who discovers Sonic — who is definitely not a cat, despite his half-hearted attempt at meowing.
Ben Schwartz - Sonic
Sonic has been a walking (running), talking hedgehog since the early '90s. Many a voice has given life to the certain brand of sass that Sega imbued into their mascot in order to appeal to the edgy kids that thought Nintendo's Mario was for babies. Jason Griffith and Roger Craig Smith have long voiced the blue blur in modern games and animated series, but the live action Sonic the Hedgehog will be voiced by Ben Schwartz.
Schwartz has been involved with comedy for a long time, starting out on Late Night with Conan O'Brien in 2006. Since then he has had a ton of television appearances, like on Arrested Development in 2013, after his perhaps most famous role as the strange, spoiled grown man with a dubious singing voice on Parks and Recreation (2010). Schwartz also has a lot of voice acting credits, performing the main character of Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja (2012) and more recently Dewey Duck in Disney's DuckTales reboot (2017). Now, he's a speedy hedgehog who, as the trailer says, has to go fast.
Lee Majdoub - Agent Stone
Lee Majdoub got his start in acting by doing short videos based on nerdy properties like Pokemon and Scott Pilgrim. We'd venture to say he's a certified nerd on set, his voice having been featured in games like Splinter Cell: Blacklist (2013). You'd be more likely to recognize him from TV, however, having had minor roles in Arrow (2014), Once Upon A Time (2015), and The Magicians (2016). He also had a recurring role as the human vessel for the angel Hannah on Supernatural (2015). More recently he has starred beside Elijah Wood as Silas Dengdamor in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (2017).
In the Sonic the Hedgehog movie, Majdoub is playing Agent Stone, the apparent right-hand man and translator of sorts for the dastardly Dr. Ivo Robotnik, wearing the signature bad guy look in all black. So far he has the best line, clarifying to a flabbergasted army major, "The doctor thinks you're basic."
Neal McDonough - Major Bennington
Neal McDonough has extensive acting credits in both Marvel and DC properties. He played Dr. Bruce Banner himself in the 1996 The Incredible Hulk TV series, getting mad and going green. His next big role was markedly more sober, playing the fictional counterpart to the very real Lynn D. (Buck) Compton in the miniseries Band of Brothers (2001). He followed this up with the 2002 TV series Boomtown in which he played Deputy District Attorney David McNorris.
He's since voiced a number of DC characters, but he broke into the MCU with his role as Timothy 'Dum Dum' Dugan, a Howling Commando in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). He played Dum Dum Dugan again in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2014) and Agent Carter (2015). Playing both sides, he has been Damien Darhk in The Flash, Arrow, and DC's Legends of Tomorrow. Now he's Major Bennington, not that Robotnik cares about his name, in Sonic the Hedgehog.
Elfina Luk - Secretary of Homeland Security
Elfina Luk has been in the acting business since 2005, playing small roles in shows like Smallville (2005) and The L Word (2006). One of her first named roles was portraying Steffi Chow in the 2008 TV series The Guard. She also played Jin in The Runner (2013), a show all about parkour and murder plots. She started getting authoritative roles starting with IADG Analyst Taylor Nguyen in 2017's TV series Zoo. She was recast as a Nguyen in Hit the Road (2017), where she played Dr. Helen Nguyen for two episodes.
More recently she has played Nurse Dalisay Villanueva in the ongoing The Good Doctor TV series. She also wrapped up her role as Joyce Collins in the final season of iZombie (2018). In Sonic the Hedgehog, she will flex her authoritative skills and portray an apparently concerned Secretary of Homeland Security. A blue alien that can talk and listen to Run DMC zapping the all the power out in the Pacific Northwest? Sounds like an issue for Homeland Security for sure.
Tika Sumpter
Calling all gossip girls, because fans of the show were sure to blink at their screen and say, "Is that Raina?" when they saw Tika Sumpter appear alongside James Marsden and a CGI blue hedgehog. Tika Sumpter played Raina Thorpe in Season 4 of the 2011 hit show Gossip Girl. But she might be better known for the whopping 238 episodes on the TV soap One Life To Live (2006). For five years she played Layla Williamson and weathered all the drama on the melodrama. She followed up that performance with another 199 episodes as the antihero Candace Young on the continuing daytime soap The Haves and the Have Nots (2013).
She got her big screen debut as a main character in 2014's Ride Along, playing sister to Ice Cube and love interest to Kevin Hart. Now in the Sonic the Hedgehog film she is again alongside a cop. From the trailer, she looks like she will play Officer Wachowski's partner in crime prevention, helping to hide the existence of Sonic from the world and Robotnik.