"It's So Cool to Be Part of an Artist Community" Tom Hanks, Tim Allen & Joan Cusack on 'Toy Story 5'

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: I've done like six-hour recording sessions with a break and stuff like that because they have to get it all. And the last thing you do at the end of six hours is they have all the screams. The effort is right. [00:00:14] Speaker 2: There's a package for you. Oh, thank you, thank you. Hi there, I'm Lilypad. Let's play. Extinction, not again. [00:00:24] Speaker 3: Hello everyone and welcome to the big ticket interview presented by Fandango 4. Toy Story 5. [00:00:32] Speaker 4: Yeah! [00:00:33] Speaker 3: Joey Cusack, Tim Allen, Tom Hanks and Greta Lee are here. I am so excited to talk to you folks. And, you know, this morning I'm getting ready for the interview and I'm looking at the new threads that Fandango got me. Wow, nice. You look like a man, Mark. You look like a man ready to take on the world. I sit with y'all and I feel like I'm eight years old. [00:00:49] Speaker 1: Is that how old you were when you saw the first one? [00:00:52] Speaker 3: I was around that age. But to think that it's been 30 years since the first one. [00:00:57] Speaker 5: Do you guys like being reminded of that? [00:01:00] Speaker 6: No, no I don't. Tom and I earlier today saw pictures of us as young children doing the Toy Story 1. And you're going, boy, I don't remember. [00:01:11] Speaker 1: Was I in junior high when we did the first one? [00:01:16] Speaker 3: Well, you look at 30 years and then we see some snippets and some trailers for Toy Story 5 and Woody takes his hat off and it set the internet ablaze because Woody now has a bald spot. [00:01:28] Speaker 6: Well, it's worn. What did you say? It's not a bald spot. It's worn. It's worn. For people patting him on the head, it's worn. [00:01:34] Speaker 3: For people telling him good job. Good job. Yeah, yeah. See, it's not a bald spot. [00:01:37] Speaker 1: And also the hat coming on, going off, coming on, going off, coming on, going off. Totally. It's not a bald spot. It's not a bald spot. It didn't gain any weight. It's a worn spot. It's just a lot of attaboys. Yeah, exactly. And the stuffing has settled. [00:01:51] Speaker 3: Well, I have good news for the entire cast because Fandango asked moviegoers what their most anticipated summer film is and Toy Story 5 came in at number one. Wow. You guys are winners. Wow. And Greta, I was curious for you how that lands because you probably grew up a Toy Story fan. So how cool is it to be joining this cast for Toy Story 5? [00:02:12] Speaker 5: Yeah, I was 13 when the first movie came out. [00:02:16] Speaker 6: Let's do the math. How old are you now? [00:02:20] Speaker 5: Yeah. No, it's, it is such an honor to be here with these people here. I mean, I'm, no, our national treasures, you are, you are, I love you. I love, we just met, but I love you so much. No, it's such an unbelievable honor. It's such a wild thing to be part of something that I, I experienced myself. I mean, you were saying you do as a kid and now I'm part of this and I'm getting to experience it again with my own kids. [00:02:52] Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Yeah. And yet, you're the adversary. That's true. Well. [00:02:57] Speaker 5: It's complicated. [00:02:58] Speaker 6: It gets complicated, Tom. [00:03:00] Speaker 1: You'll see more. In a good way. Is that not an adult theme to bring into a story about toys? Listen, it's, it's complicated. [00:03:08] Speaker 3: Yeah. That's how you sell tickets and tickets are available on Fandango right now, by the way. Joan, how does it feel coming back for you? What was it, you know, about this time back that was exciting for you to return? [00:03:19] Speaker 4: Jessie's story. Yay. Jessie's story. Bigger. Girl power. [00:03:26] Speaker 3: Bigger. [00:03:28] Speaker 5: It's true though. It is. Sorry, boys. Total girls all about Jessie. [00:03:33] Speaker 3: And we see you taking charge in the trailer. You're really, you know, running a tight ship with all the other toys while we're not sure where Woody is, but it seems like you and Buzz have a pretty good working relationship as we start. Might call it that. [00:03:44] Speaker 4: Of course, of course. Okay, all right. No, but it's not just, it's about little girls and how little girls behave to each other and clicks and what tech does to little girls and how you can be mean and keep kids out. And it's so great. I can't believe they took it on. [00:04:05] Speaker 3: It's exciting for me too to see Buzz, and we get to see a lot of buzzes in the trailer anyway. Tim, can you kind of set up what Buzz has been up to? Because I'm not sure how long of a time period it's been from the end of Toy Story 4 to the beginning of this. What has Buzz been up to in his Interstellar Ventures? [00:04:20] Speaker 1: Well, he answers this question. Could I get my phone? Go ahead, answer it. Go ahead. Just start answering. Talk about Buzz. [00:04:26] Speaker 2: See, tech. [00:04:27] Speaker 3: Can we get Tom a lily pad to play with while we're... [00:04:30] Speaker 2: See, attention span. [00:04:32] Speaker 1: I must say, when we were watching this, nobody explained it. They always say, let me just show you a sequence that we've finished, and the first thing I see is like 300 Buzz Light years, and I just thought, well, I'm sunk. [00:04:44] Speaker 6: Well, that was, I was making a joke about it after the last one. I said, we liked the last one. I said, but I would like to see a little more Buzz. And I thought it was funny when Stanton showed me this screenshot of there's going to be 50 buzzes. [00:04:59] Speaker 5: Did you get paid extra? [00:05:00] Speaker 6: You get paid for the Buzz? Oh, hell yeah. It's Screen Actors Guild and the DGA and Teamster. You got paid? [00:05:09] Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, yeah. For each Buzz. Yeah. [00:05:11] Speaker 1: It's in the mail. Oh, yeah. You got it all. I haven't gotten a check from Disney since I played Walt. Wow. I just did it as a favor. [00:05:19] Speaker 3: There's four guys waiting on a check. Tim has now 300 versions of Buzz, and all we have for Woody is a bald spot. I mean, this is, this feels a little unfair to me. [00:05:26] Speaker 6: Well, just wait. But I was going to say, this is funny that you say this. I think this story got so about Jessie's pattern and how she went through it. It got so big. It got past meanness with girls. It got about meanness to children. And I just, I stopped relating, not that she's not a girl. Right, right, right. But boys are mean in a very different way, but mean is the same. Yeah. You know, I just, when they were, how sad she was and how, then she read that text. And I went, God, I broke my heart. [00:05:58] Speaker 1: Every time when they show us a little bit, did you experience this? I look at Andrew and whoever else is in the room, said, how did you guys come up with this? That's, isn't that a good one? [00:06:05] Speaker 3: There's a human heart to every Toy Story movie. And I think, because one of the themes of this one feels like it's toys meet tech, right? Which is where Lilypad comes in. And so have you all noticed in your own personal lives that kids aren't playing with toys as much as they are leaning into the tech? Because I see it with my niece and my nephews that they like playing with toys, but they also really rely on their devices as well. [00:06:26] Speaker ?: Yeah. [00:06:27] Speaker 5: I mean, Tom is addicted to his cell phone. [00:06:29] Speaker 3: Is he really? [00:06:29] Speaker 1: I am so not. I'm still goofing around with Major Matt Mason. I have him right on my desk. I think there is an age where they, where they're at some aspect, their lives kind of like schoolwork requires an iPad and, you know, connection to at school required, oh, you got to have this app and sign on. [00:06:47] Speaker 4: And a computer. [00:06:48] Speaker 1: But I, I have also noticed that there are a number of people and of all generations that are kind of going Luddite. They don't want to be. And they, they, they have other versions of phones that they can keep in contact with. And they just, they just don't want to, they don't want to be there. But then you look at the way most of society works. And I have yet to see anybody walking across the street, particularly in Los Angeles, who isn't like looking at their phone at the same time. [00:07:12] Speaker 6: I could rob everybody at Starbucks and they'd never know I stole everything. [00:07:16] Speaker 4: But you know what, they, they took it on. They do. They do. They took on that really huge conflict. [00:07:23] Speaker 6: Those two, those two at the end. [00:07:25] Speaker 4: And made a great argument for playing. [00:07:28] Speaker 6: Playing, engagement, engage, engage. And I said, I have a tool shop in North Hollywood. We build cars and both my daughters, I've gotten them, the younger one, not so much. The older one, I, I, she wanted to know how to take off of a suspension component. And I said, just the process of doing it scared her. And I said, the downside of tech is that it'll tell you exactly how to do it. That's the benefit of tech. [00:07:54] Speaker 3: It walks you step by step. It'll go. [00:07:56] Speaker 6: And there's 60 different videos of how to do that. It will not show you how to actually grab the wrench and do the work. And when my older daughter did it, the look on her face, she goes, I just did that. I said, yeah, you didn't read about it. You didn't investigate it. You did it. The engagement is, it's, you can't describe how much, how much better that makes you feel as a human. [00:08:16] Speaker 3: And you see a little of that interaction when Jesse meets Lilypad for the first time in the, in the trailer. So for, for your character, how do you see Lilypad as relating to them? Because I mean, you're just, you're just a thing that exists. You didn't, you didn't, you weren't put here to be a villain. You're just a cool new thing to play with. [00:08:32] Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that was something that was very fun for us from the beginning to think about a character who's completely unbothered actually by the rest of them and unburdened by, you know, how stressed they are with the arrival of this, this device and how it's changing the way Bonnie plays. I love that even though Jesse and Lily are polar opposites, they both fundamentally care about, about Bonnie, really. And that is something that they do have in common, but with very different tactics, obviously. [00:09:05] Speaker 3: I have to ask you, Greta, you and I, we were probably around the same age when we saw the first Toy Story, right? What's it like to get the call that you know, that now you're going to be joining the ranks of, as you said, these screen legends to be able to be on the same playing field with them, for you as a performer, how's that feel? [00:09:23] Speaker 5: No, it was completely insane. [00:09:26] Speaker 1: The first time you go into that activity, stage B, with a fabulous engineer, Doc, he's back behind the thing, and all of it has happened there. I think I've done probably 92% of all the recording in that. [00:09:41] Speaker 5: You have, yeah. [00:09:42] Speaker 1: And there you are. Well, it's terrifying. Everything on that digital tape is going to last forever. [00:09:48] Speaker 5: I know, but I was also, because I was thinking of all of you, and I was imagining what it would be like. I mean, I've now since learned that you never recorded with each other. [00:09:59] Speaker 3: You never recorded with each other. [00:10:01] Speaker 1: If you see it, it was staged for the fake, for the... [00:10:05] Speaker 5: The chemistry that you have together as characters is unbelievable. So I was assuming that you were all together, you know, improvising and feeding off of each [00:10:15] Speaker 1: other. The powers of imagination do kick in. I mean, knowing that, you know, Jesse is going to be this and Buzz is going to be... It's palpable. Yeah. Pull it up. [00:10:25] Speaker 3: But do you prefer working solo in an environment like that, just because you kind of get to run and explore? No. Would you actually rather scheduling permits be all there together? [00:10:31] Speaker 6: I'd say... We did one... Do you remember when we read one? Yeah. I don't know what the... Rickles was there. We were all in that same room. [00:10:38] Speaker 5: The first one, you said. Oh, yeah. Like an actual table read? [00:10:41] Speaker 6: Yes. It was kind of like where we sat and they showed us stick figure drawings. Yeah. Well, I think that was the second one. Second one. And we read it and it was fabulous. Amazing. And I dreamt of this. I wish I could have seen that. For charity, for anything, to have us all in a room and like a table read and read the whole story. Estelle was there, I think, you know. Mr. Moody Rickles, who is much like his character, you know. [00:11:08] Speaker 3: Don Rickles might be the most perfect casting in anything. [00:11:10] Speaker 6: You don't know what he said in between takes. That was the best part of it. That's the stuff we wanted. Yeah, I'm pretty bad, but he's... [00:11:18] Speaker 1: I introduced my son to him, the youngest. He was 16 years old. I said, you got to meet my son. Truman, this is Don Ray. Hey, Truman, how are you? Then he went off. [00:11:33] Speaker 3: How big do you all get in the recording studio when it's just you? Like, are you really performing it or is it just more of you're just standing and doing the lines? [00:11:40] Speaker 5: Well, you have to, right? It's exhausting. We were just talking about this. It's so exhausting. It's exhausting. [00:11:46] Speaker 6: I learned this from Jo Beth Williams when she first did, I did a movie with her and she said, don't read my lines. You know, she said, it's like actor stuff I didn't know. You never want the director to go, here's how you want to say it. And she'd yell, that's a line reading. I don't want that. However, in this situation, sometimes you'll have a lot of line readings and I don't even know how to say it. And sometimes it's one word. Come on, Woody. [00:12:12] Speaker ?: Come on, Woody. Okay. [00:12:13] Speaker 6: Again. Come on, Woody. There's only so many ways you can say, come on, Woody. Come on, Woody. No. I'm not. How about, come on, Woody? When you, do you want me to mimic you or do you want to say it? [00:12:29] Speaker 1: Alas, there is never an end to the different ways to say two or three words together. It's frustrating like that. You have to go there. [00:12:38] Speaker 4: It's, it's so cool to be a part of an artist community because it's, Pixar is a crazy artist [00:12:47] Speaker 3: place. Like if you ever get a tour, I got to go, I got a tour once and the cookies are the best I've ever had in my entire life. [00:12:53] Speaker 4: Interesting. [00:12:54] Speaker 3: Fantastic cookies. [00:12:55] Speaker 4: Open air. But those, all those different rooms with the tiki lounge and people and so you're just doing your little piece of their world. [00:13:05] Speaker 1: You see through the glass of, of office where a meeting is going on and all these people are waving their arms and laughing and writing stuff down and drawing. [00:13:15] Speaker 4: It's really cool to even just have someone in that room be, try it again this way because of this. And it's some interesting idea. [00:13:27] Speaker 6: They did marriage actors with, I mean, I, I, I, I follow, uh, uh, Paul, uh, Paul Fries, what was it? Paul Fries? Oh yeah. He was a voiceover. I, I did a lot of voiceovers out of college and it, I was with some very good men that did banking commercials on how to make it real. And that's who did all the voices for the cartoons originally. And when they did this one, Toy Story, they put Tom and I in it and put our names above the title, which they didn't realize what that actually meant, but they, to put actors doing it and luckily had two guys either, for me anyway, I was blind enough or innocent enough. I just did what I was told and acted. And it's very uncomfortable to act in a room by yourself. There's it, and it's, I'm looking at doc and all, you know, 15 people in the window going, knock him in the window and they're yelling at somebody out room. Yeah. Uh, it's, it's not going to talk, yeah, could you, we didn't hear any of that. [00:14:21] Speaker 3: It's, it's all this sort of magic that, that a lot of folks don't, don't get to see, don't need to see because when we see the movie, we just get so sucked up into that world. [00:14:28] Speaker 1: You, you, you haven't heard the 71 takes we have done of a line. [00:14:33] Speaker 3: That we haven't heard all the come on. [00:14:35] Speaker 1: We don't have all, you haven't heard that. And then they do this thing after I've done like, I've done like six hour recording sessions with a break and stuff like that. Cause they have to get it all. And the last thing you do at the end of six hours is they have all the screams. Yeah. [00:14:58] Speaker 6: That's funny. I'll watch the movie and I go, that actually was a good one. That was it. That's it. I nailed, I nailed that one. I guess like all the buzzes, there's 50 of them, they're running through the, and I got to go. And you see this idiot. I'm glad no one sees me in that studio. I'm actually going. Oh, oh, oh. And they go less, less, less. [00:15:17] Speaker 1: Oh, oh. And you can't move. You can't be off mic. So you have to stand and you cannot, you know, if you're off mic, you have to do it again. It's the most demanding work I've done as an actor. [00:15:28] Speaker 3: So for Buzz and Woody, I've always wanted to ask you all this question. Coming into Toy Story 5, to this particular movie, you guys are separate. Who missed who more? You think Buzz missed Woody more? Or do you think Woody missed Buzz more? Well, I told them that. Cause I had a tough time. [00:15:42] Speaker 6: Well, we both had a tough time saying goodbye. I said to each other. Yeah. We talked to each other and I said, I had a real tough time. And when I read it, I went, does he finish this? And they go, he, yeah, he finished. And they go, oh, oh boy, I think my allergies are acting up. And I could, it was really, I get choked up saying it and they go, I don't know. I don't think we can use that one. I go, no, I can't say it again. And eventually I had to turn around. I couldn't stare at the window anymore. And so I felt, I always felt that this needed, they gave me the hug where I hugged him. But you see who initiated the hug in the movie. I hug you, but Buzz did, but he did. They didn't give me, I'm doing all this stuff. I wish that they'd had me use that microphone. I always thought it'd be funny if I picked up Potato Head's ear. Cause that's how we talked before. Right. [00:16:33] Speaker 1: This is the first thing Tim does is he know what you should do in this movie. You should have Buzz do this and Buzz should do that. And they don't listen. They go, they go like this. Okay. [00:16:41] Speaker 6: Yeah. Can we start from the top again? That'd be great. [00:16:44] Speaker 3: Yeah. Toy Story, the franchise, I think it's the highest rated movie franchise on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomato meter, like of any movie franchise in history. So when you introduce something like this for a new generation, which is what we're doing, what do you hope that a new generation will take away from Toy Story 5? [00:17:01] Speaker 6: This magic, what she brought, that Jessie's, it just tore me up. What they did. [00:17:06] Speaker 4: They took it on. They took it on. [00:17:09] Speaker 6: You had to deliver that by yourself in that room. That thing at the tree and her name, her mother, the thing about her mother. And it's not sad like, it's like your kid going off to college. It's like, it just, it's just, you know. [00:17:25] Speaker 1: There is a moment in all of them that speaks directly to who we are as human beings. Yes. When, when we were all on that conveyor belt and we were going to be destroyed in the fiery pit of the dump. And there's nothing going on except us looking at each other and reaching out, you know, for each other. You can get your kid going right there. And even though I have yet to see the movie, I'm seeing it on, on, on Monday, despite the constant stream of spoiler alerts I should have been given about the conversations that I've heard thus far today, I know that what's, what's coming down the pike. And I, we have all stood in the recording studio doing it. And I want to say, give me a minute guys. Cause this, this is a powerful beat you're explaining to me here. I'm going to have to deal with it. [00:18:18] Speaker 3: Greta. You grew up with all three of these, but I'm now going to make you pick who was your favorite toy story toy when you saw the first toy story movie. There's a safe answer. Oh my God. There's a safe answer. [00:18:30] Speaker 2: Someone who's not, it's a slinky dog. There you go. Of course. Slinky dog. Okay. Only and safe. That's the only answer. [00:18:37] Speaker 3: Slinky dog. [00:18:38] Speaker 2: It's just so patronizing. I love slinky dogs. So yeah. Good. [00:18:42] Speaker 3: That was such a great politically correct answer. [00:18:45] Speaker 6: You should, you should get into that. [00:18:46] Speaker 3: He is super helpful. [00:18:47] Speaker 6: Yeah. That's so good. [00:18:49] Speaker 3: Thanks Joan. What's wrong with the dog, you know? [00:18:51] Speaker 1: You could have said etch-a-sketch. I could have. That would have worked just as well. [00:18:54] Speaker ?: Yeah. [00:18:55] Speaker 5: I could have said that. Or Forky. Forky. Forky. Yeah. Yeah. [00:19:01] Speaker 1: Man oh man. Forky's not even a toy, but becomes a toy. But look at that. He was, he was a created being. Yeah. [00:19:06] Speaker 3: Whoever wants to take it, in one sentence, why should folks see Toy Story 5 opening weekend? Go. [00:19:13] Speaker 4: Wait, wait, wait. [00:19:14] Speaker 1: We all want to. But we don't want to be the jerk that comes out with it really loudest the first. But you just did. I guess I did, didn't I? Eventually, no. [00:19:23] Speaker 3: How about don't be the jerk that doesn't see Toy Story 5 opening weekend? Oh boy. [00:19:27] Speaker 6: Well, more than that. It's so good. You'll love it. [00:19:30] Speaker 5: It's so good. It's cinematic. It has so much heart. It'll make you feel good. It's so funny. It has all of your favorite characters back and some new ones. It's very timely. It's important. [00:19:42] Speaker 3: There we go. [00:19:43] Speaker 4: It is. The world sucks. It feels so good to see a good movie. The world sucks. It's funny. [00:19:49] Speaker 3: It's important. It's funny. You'll feel good seeing Toy Story 5. Tickets are on sale right now at Fandango. And you can also get big ticket interviews now in podcast form, wherever you get your podcasts. So, for Joan Cusack, Tim Allen, Tom Hanks, Greta Lee, I am merely Mark Ellis. Thank you guys for tuning in to The Big Ticket. We will see you next time.