While “Sonic 2 the movie” is currently in dark rooms, comedian Idris Elba, who doubles Knuckles, returned to his preparation to step into the skin of the character. He has just revealed that he notably improvised a large part of his dialogues.
Sonic 2: the little blue hedgehog meets his friends
In theaters since March 30, sonic 2 movies are directed by Jeff Fowler, the director of the first opus. Jim Carrey and James Marsden are both back in front of the camera, while little Sonic crosses paths with Knuckles and Tails, two other iconic video game characters. As of now, this sequel has already grossed over $29 million in revenue at the box office despite fairly negative reviews. A third opus is already planned on the side of Paramount.
Idris Elba improvised some of his lines
Thereby, sonic 2 introduces a new character to the Little Blue Hedgehog cinematic universe. Indeed, the powerful Knuckles makes its appearance in the second installment of the franchise. He’s the actor Idris Elba who was chosen to double him. In a recent interview with ScreenRant, the comedian explained how he approached the little red character. He specified that the important point in his approach was to find the right tone of voice. Once Knuckles’ tone of voice has been established, Jeff Fowler gave the actor carte blanche. Idris Elba claimed to have improvised much of his dialogue:
First we found his voice. You know, he talks very jerkily. So the director said, “Hey, just say what you want”. So I totally improvised, and part of it ended up in the film. It was very fun.
It is true that the voice of Knuckles (thus that of Idris Elba) is quite pleasant to hear in the ear. Regarding improvisation, this revelation is ultimately not very surprising. In sonic 2, some dialogues of the characters sound almost out of tune or at least disconnected from the rest. It seems that a large part of the dialogues was not prepared in advance. It is not for nothing that in our review we explain why Paramount rushed too much to produce this feature film… In any case, Idris Elba is not yet finished with Knuckles since the character will be back in sonic 3but also in a spin-off series centered on the character.
