Tony Hale On Voicing Ultron In ‘Marvel's Iron Man And His Awesome Friends'

Forbes

20 hours ago

You can now hear actor Tony Hale voice the iconic Marvel villain 'Ultron' in Marvel's Iron Man And His Awesome Friends, which debuted on Disney Jr. Monday and has season one's 10 episodes available on Disney+ Tuesday.
Rated TV-Y, the series is similar in tone and structure to Spidey and His Amazing Friends, which proved to be a smashing success with young Marvel fans everywhere.
The Veep star informed me there was a type of fun, old-fashioned villain we don't see much of today that he was striving for with his run at the character.
'When I was doing him, I like to hearken him back to kind of classic villains… A little bit of like the foils and like twisting of the mustache, because those are the villains I like,' the Arrested Development actor told me.
'I like the, you know, the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the 'Child Catcher', or like the 'Wicked Witch of the West' in Wizard of Oz. They're fun villains. They're not like dark, dark villains. So he's just fun and he's always, you know, digging a hole for himself and he's always causing his own downfall and all that stuff."
Sketch, a film Tony stars in and produced, finally hit theaters last week. It took eight years for the movie, written and directed by Seth Worley, to get made. In the film, a young girls sketches come to life after she drops her sketchbook in a pond.
'It has been a journey," Hale said. "But I, first of all, I came in knowing that Seth is such a master of special effects. And then this story of just, processing feelings and giving your kids the room to process feelings, I loved that through line, but it's surreal, man. It has been a lot of ups and downs. We had a hard time finding financing.
"We finally got the financing, shooting all that stuff. So it's both surreal and very exciting this week, and I'm so proud of it. I can't wait for people (to see it), it's such a journey. It's eye candy and such an emotional journey.'
Hale hoped his new film would be a uniquely enjoyable experience for children and their parents.
'I loved Goonies growing up, it's something the whole family could watch and so that's kind of what I wanted, people to have that experience. Truthfully, there was a lot of movies my daughter watched when she was younger that she wanted me to watch with her and I was like, 'If I have to watch this one more time…" I wanted parents to enjoy the humor as much as the kids enjoy the spectacle of it all.'
In having such a breakout performance as 'Buster' Bluth in Arrested Development earlier in his career, one could wonder if Hale was concerned about being typecast before he succeeded in having a plethora of roles in hit television shows and films after the already classic comedy series.
'I think I worried after Arrested was done," Tony said. "I was so stoked to get on Arrested and be a part of that show. After I was like, 'Huh.' I went on a lot of auditions because it wasn't like someone's going to be casting a lawyer and be like, you know who'd be really good for that? That guy who played Buster Bluth.
"So I needed to show people that I could do out other stuff, and it took time. Buster was definitely like, he was out there, man. He was like his own cartoon character.'
The key to Hale's brilliant performance of Buster wasn't in going for cheap laughs, but in playing him real.
'I definitely didn't think he thought he was whack. Yeah. I definitely thought Buster was like, 'Listen, I'm the smartest guy in the room,'" Hale stated. "But I will say, I've struggled with anxiety in my life. A long time ago, I used to have a panic attack, and so I knew where that came from.
'But they gave me such crazy circumstances, when they're like, oh, by the way, a seal's going to bite off your hand, and by the way, you're going to date Liza Minnelli. And all this kind of stuff.
"I was like, all you had to do was play that real, because the circumstances spoke for themselves. And she was amazing and lovely and I just kind of went with that.'
It was simple for Tony to find great chemistry with living comedy legend Julia Louis-Dreyfus on Veep.
'Well, not only is she so talented, she's so cool. And so we really hit it off and we're, like great friends. But it's her timing, man. And both Jessica Walter, who played my mom on Arrested and then Julia Louis-Dreyfus, their timing is so solid. And so working with someone who's timing is solid, you always felt like if I'm going to throw the ball, they're going to throw it back.
"There's just that sense of you trust each other's comedy. So then when Julia and I were on Veep together, it was just like its own comic dance.
"We just kind of had fun with it. The script was always kind of solid, and then we would get on set and be like, 'What physicality can we do to make this funnier?' And that's the time that I really loved.'