How Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Was Shaped by Jim Carrey

For Jeff Fowler, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is the fullest of full circles. 

Before he transitioned to feature directing, Fowler worked as an animator at Tim Miller’s Blur Studio for many years, helping craft multiple high-res cut scenes for various Sonic the Hedgehog video games. Most notably, he contributed to Sega’s multi-platform spinoff game, Shadow the Hedgehog (2005), and when he eventually had the chance to tease a character in the mid-credits of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022), he jumped at the chance to welcome the “little badass” to the big screen. Given that the character is a darker version of Sonic — a hedgehog who’s driven by a wide-ranging revenge campaign — Mr. John Wick himself, Keanu Reeves, slid seamlessly into the role. 

During the promotion of Sonic 2, Jim Carrey, who plays Sonic’s (Ben Schwartz) archnemesis Dr. Ivo Robotnik, received a great deal of attention for his talk of impending retirement, but Fowler was never fazed by the hypothetical. 

“I never bought that for a second. Jim has too much fun playing this character. If we dangled a really great new idea for him to play with and explore as Robotnik, then I felt that he would be interested in coming back,” Fowler tells The Hollywood Reporter. 

Carrey has truly been a creative force on the Sonic films. Case in point, on the set of Sonic 2, he whipped out his phone and turned on Pantera’s “Walk,” as part of a pitch that involved Robotnik playing “leg guitar” inside his Giant Eggman Robot. So Fowler knew that the celebrated actor wouldn’t be able to just turn that switch off, especially when Sonic 3‘s tantalizing dual roles of Ivo Robotnik and his grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, were presented to him. Thus, Carrey became more involved than ever before, putting his stamp on the character designs, character beats and improvisational dialogue. His impact was so significant that he received an additional credit on the film as “artistic consultant.”

Carrey even improvised a fourth wall-breaking moment where the Robotniks acknowledge that the same actor is playing both characters. 

“How can you pass up the opportunity for a little wink at the audience? We all really loved the idea too, and it’s also fun to acknowledge the Jim Carrey of it all in that scene,” Fowler says. 

Like its predecessors, Sonic 3’s closing credits tease more fan-favorite character introductions in a potential fourth film that Paramount has in the works. But, at this moment in time, Fowler is solely focused on the release and reception of Sonic 3. 

“With 30-plus years of characters in the Sonic library, it’s always so exciting to tease new characters at the end of each film,” Fowler shares. “Bringing in new characters can really push us in new directions, and it is very exciting. But, right now, we’re just focused on the release of this third movie, and we’re hoping it will be received well. We’ll see where things go from there.”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Fowler also discusses the fact that Carrey has now played Robotnik more than any of his other big screen characters.

***

Keanu isn’t the easiest get. He’s turned down a lot of cool opportunities for one reason or another. Did you have to pull out all the stops for him to play Shadow? 

We just shared all of our plans, our artworks and a lot of storyboards. We had already planned a lot of the film, and when it came time to make the pitch, having some really great-looking visuals is always a good place to start. So he really saw the potential in the character. Shadow is cool. He rides a motorcycle [like Reeves does]. He’s got all these great powers But more importantly, he actually has some real depth. He’s got this really interesting backstory that fans love, and there’s some real dimension and complexity to the character that made Keanu such a great fit.

You’ve described Shadow’s backstory as having a “John Wick corollary.” Did he pick up on that?

I’m sure there was an unsaid awareness. But even if Keanu had never made any of those films, we still would’ve gone out to him. For decades, he’s played these types of characters that are a little darker or have a little bit of edge to them. And tonally, it was going to offer us something so new and fresh for this third Sonic film.

During your meeting together, did you mention your history with the character via the 2005 video game?

Oh, I’ll bring that up to anybody who will listen. Such incredible fortune comes with this opportunity, and I never would’ve imagined this possibility 20 years ago. One of my first jobs in the industry was working on that [Shadow the Hedgehog] game and animating that character. And to be here 20 years later and be responsible for his introduction to audiences on the big screen, it’s incredibly surreal that it’s all come full circle. 

Alyla Browne plays a key character in Shadow’s life, and she was cast before everyone saw her phenomenal turn as Young Furiosa in Furiosa. Did you and your casting directors hear whispers about how great she was in that?

Yeah, she’s now been in two of George Miller’s projects [2022’s Three Thousand Years of Longing being the other], and she clearly has something that George saw. So we inherited his great casting on those films, and we could not have asked for a more incredible actress to come along and personify such an important part of the story. She was tasked with the same thing that all the other cast members were tasked with, which is performing with a character that isn’t really there. It really takes skill and imagination to create a believable performance before there’s really anything there to share the scene with you. So I was really impressed by her level of talent at such a young age.

We’ve now reached the Jim Carrey portion of the interview. He talked about retirement during the release of the second movie, so how worried were you that you wouldn’t have him back for this third outing?

I never bought that for a second. Jim has too much fun playing this character. If we dangled a really great new idea for him to play with and explore as Robotnik, then I felt that he would be interested in coming back. He’s such an incredible talent, and all it really takes is the opportunity to explore new territory, such as giving Robotnik a grandfather and telling a family story from the Robotnik side of things. The first two films have very much focused on giving Sonic family and friends, and Jim certainly did all kinds of interesting things with the character in both of those films. But Sonic 3 was a new opportunity to show what Ivo’s life would be like if suddenly he had a family.

Did you actually deliver him a script with gold ink? (Two years ago, Carrey quipped that his return would require the angelic delivery of a script that’s written in gold ink.)

I did, and it’s now worth about a hundred thousand dollars, so, hopefully, Jim has got it locked up somewhere. It was a great early conversation about exploring the Robotnik family tree and designing Gerald, the grandfather, from the ground up. Jim had a lot of fun working with Mark Coulier, our makeup designer, to create Gerald’s look. We would look at the sculpts together, and Jim would just have some little specific notes and ideas. As a director, I love that. I love when an actor is engaged and wants to help craft the character.

Is that why Jim is also credited as an “artistic consultant” on the film?

That would be my guess, yes. We didn’t want Gerald to feel like Jim Carrey with a gray mustache, a lab coat and a few wrinkles. We wanted it to feel like a unique character. There’s a family resemblance, but we needed to go further. Jim really loves disappearing into characters and taking advantage of great prosthetics. I remember standing across from him when we filmed the camera test, and that’s when everyone got their first look at what Mark had designed with the Gerald makeup. And it’s one thing for things to hold up on film. Everybody knows you can get away with a lot more on film; the camera can be very forgiving. But to literally be standing there and looking at Jim in this makeup where every detail was just so lovingly crafted, it was movie magic.

Directing Jim in a dual role, was that quite the puzzle to piece together? 

Oh, absolutely. We all had ideas about it, but it had to work for Jim. We had a bunch of different pitches and plans, and every scene in the movie required a little something different just in terms of how it needed to be shot and what the nature of the interactions were. But we had to make such a big technical ask manageable for Jim. We then found Brendan Murphy, who’s an amazing actor in the U.K. He was Jim’s scene partner, and Jim would bounce the lines off of him. Brendan worked really hard to prep, and he would work with Jim on off days to rehearse each scene. So Brendan was just an incredible blessing because it was such a huge technical and creative challenge. But Jim made it look easy.

Robotnik breaks the fourth wall in a couple moments, one of which points out that the same actor is playing both Robotnik characters. Was that Jim being Jim in that moment? Was he riffing?

Absolutely. How can you pass up the opportunity for a little wink at the audience? We all really loved the idea too, and it’s a really fun moment. It’s also fun to acknowledge the Jim Carrey of it all in that scene.

He’s now played Robotnik more than Lloyd Christmas and Ace Ventura. This is the first time he’s played a character for the third time on the big screen.

I never take for granted the opportunity of getting to work with an incredible talent like Jim, and to have now made three films with him is incredible. I obviously grew up as a huge fan of his films and all those early iconic roles in The Mask, Ace Ventura and Dumb and Dumber. And it’s just awesome to now have Robotnik in the mix and for there to be such an affinity for what he’s done with this character.

Jim pitched Robotnik playing “leg guitar” to Pantera’s “Walk” in Sonic 2. Was the Green Lantern reference another random flourish of his? 

It absolutely was. What I love most about Jim is that he always walks onto set with so many ideas, but he’s still very much a collaborator. We always talk it through, and while not all ideas make it into the movie, it’s the greatest blessing imaginable to have someone pitch so many ideas and be so engaged about finding the best version of the scene or the funniest version of the joke.

Sometimes, studios are wary of referencing other studios’ franchises, so did the Mission: Impossible/Tom Cruise synergy help cancel that out?

(Laughs.) It just felt right. Everything Tom has done for Paramount is very much appreciated by all of us on the Sonic team. So the opportunity was there [to reference Cruise], and we all thought it would be a lot of fun.

Jim really grew his hair long just for that quick montage where Stone shaves Robotnik’s head? 

Well, I think he just grew it regardless of any plans to use it in the movie, so it fell into our lap. Jim moved out to the U.K. when we were getting into serious prep to begin principal photography, and we knew we needed to meet Robotnik at rock bottom. We knew we needed to see him wallowing in his dejection and sitting around in a dirty bathrobe and being surrounded by all this gross takeout food. So Jim had this long hair that he had been growing since the end of Sonic 2, and it was such a naturally perfect fit. So we made it really bushy and gnarly and gross, and visually, he could not have been further from the clean-cut, perfectly manicured Robotnik from the last film. It’s just a great visual to start this third movie and to show how far he’s fallen. 

The idea to shave the hair on camera was Jim’s, and it was genius. It put a lot of pressure on Lee Majdoub, who plays Agent Stone. Everyone really felt for him because you’re not getting more than one take of shaving somebody’s head. But Lee really handled it in stride and did a great job. It’s all on film.

I think Lee Majdoub is the low-key MVP of this movie.

Yeah, we plucked Lee out of Vancouver [on the first film]. He was a local hire, and he and Jim just immediately had this really great energy. Jim had all these ideas about how to build out that relationship and make them the Clouseau and Cato of the Sonic universe. The two of them then fleshed out the physical humor, and Lee was just always up for anything. On the first Sonic, I remember standing around in the Wachowski house, and Jim basically looked Lee dead in the eye and said, “How do you feel if I put my hand in your mouth?” And everyone was like, “Wait, what?” And Lee was like, “When a comedic legend like Jim Carrey asks you, your only job is to say yes.” And then it became this really funny gag in the scene. Great contributions like that have happened over and over throughout the films, and those two have found really great bits to mine. 

Robotnik treats his Flying Egg drones like they’re his own children. Can you confirm that the recent drone business in New Jersey is not viral marketing for Sonic 3? 

(Laughs.) I cannot confirm nor deny. If it is, somebody over at Paramount deserves a massive raise. It’s just so bizarre. We also have this wonderful Sonic and Knuckles thing happening with the Detroit Lions. Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery, their two running backs, took it upon themselves to start calling each other Sonic and Knuckles. So the planets have come into alignment in a really fun way on this third film, and I feel fortunate that there’s just so much great stuff out there.

I had to ask since Paramount is the studio that put creepy smilers at baseball games for the Smile franchise.

Hey, with marketing, you’ve sometimes got to take some big swings to get people’s attention.

It was nice to see Krysten Ritter on the big screen again. How did her casting go down?

I’ve just been a fan of hers. With Jessica Jones, there’s obviously a toughness to her, and that’s really what we wanted to add into the mix. If we were building out G.U.N. ‘s organization in this third movie, we just felt it might be nice to start nudging things, tonally, by going a little less comedic and bringing some grounding into the world. So we just thought Krysten would do a great job, and she did. She gave us a great performance.

Have the VFX noticeably improved since the first film? 

Oh, absolutely. Every time we finish one of these, Ged Wright, who’s been my visual effects supervisor since the first film, and I do a postmortem. We always want to look at it while it’s all still fresh and say, “What can we do better?” So everything we just went through is still at the forefront of our minds, and we just have a quick download of how we can improve and what we can do differently next time. And the movies have really benefited because of that. We have such a strong visual effects team that knows each other so well, and we have such a great shorthand that it’s really allowed for us to keep pushing things. And the scope of this third movie is so much bigger. The visual effects are so much more ambitious, but the characters all look fantastic. Fans are going to absolutely love Shadow. We knew how important it was to get him right. He’s such a popular character around the world, and we just had to make him great for this fanbase. 

This movie could function as a trilogy capper if you really wanted it to, but you do open the door to some new possibilities and characters in the tags. Are you willing to make another one if all goes well?

This is such an incredible sandbox. With 30-plus years of characters in the Sonic library, it’s always so exciting to tease new characters at the end of each film. Honestly, one of my favorite parts of the process is to see the reactions in theaters on opening weekend and just hear audiences and fans go crazy. Of course, everyone has their guesses about who’s coming next, and it’s a great problem to have such a vast library of characters that fans care so deeply about and would love to see on the big screen. And you can’t help but get excited about the story potential that those characters bring. That’s how it was on Sonic 2. The minute Shadow’s cryotube came up, we were all just like, “Let’s go.” We knew what that character was going to bring and how it was going to keep the story fresh and evolving. The one thing this team doesn’t want to do is repeat ourselves or remake the same movie. So bringing in new characters can really push us in new directions, and it is very exciting. But, right now, we’re just focused on the release of this third movie, and we’re hoping it will be received well. We’ll see where things go from there.

If you could green-light something else for yourself, what other dream projects have you had your eye on all these years? 

As a kid, I fell in love with visual effects and what visual effects can do for movies, going back to Star Wars. So it’d be stuff where the visual effects are the main component in the story. I spent the first 15 years of my career in visual effects. It’s really what I love. With the Sonic films, I’ve had the opportunity to work with incredible actors and do physical production, but I also get to be in visual effects. I get to create character animation and digital performances with artists and animators all around the world. It’s just the best. So I’ll always be looking for films that can combine those two worlds because they feel like the type of films that I’m best equipped to make.

Lastly, the goodwill you earned from the Sonic design change on the first film, do you still think that’s a big reason why you’re now talking about your third Sonic film?

I get asked about it in every interview, so I have to say yes. I just love to talk about that great moment, even if it was very tough at the time. It created this relationship with our fans and the opportunity for them to feel heard and acknowledged. So it will always be part of our story no matter how many of these films we make. It will always come back to that engagement and to that very honest transaction between our team and our fan base. And if I could go back, I wouldn’t change a thing.

***Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is now playing in movie theaters.