Chatting w/ ‘Mater and new Cast of Cars 3 including Nathan Fillion #Cars3Event

I was provided an all expense paid trip to cover the #Cars3Event. This is my second post covering the Cast of Cars 3 interviews. All opinions are my own.

Have you read my first Cast of Cars 3 interview post with Owen Wilson, Kerry Washington, Cristela Alonzo & Armie Hammer? If you haven’t had a chance yet, please make sure to read that interview coverage next. If you did read it, you know just how many laughs we had and how fun it was. At least I hope you can picture just how fun of an interview it was.

Let me tell you, this next group from the cast of Cars 3 was just as fun, just as hilarious and we had just as many laughs. AND this group included Nathan Fillion. Pretty sure I can safely say that I’m not his only fan. I mean, come on… Two Guys a Girl and a Pizza Place, Firefly, Castle? Yes, I totally met Nathan Fillion and here’s proof. 😉

I will admit that I was a little starstruck when Nathan walked into the room. He is as charming as all of the characters he plays. I was also quickly won over by Larry the Cable Guy (voice of “Mater”), Lea DeLaria (voice of “Miss Fritter”) & Isiah Whitlock Jr. (voice of “River Scott”).

Chatting with the Cast of Cars 3

All four in this group cast of Cars 3 interview were just awesome together. I commented in my first interview post about how close the cast seemed to be. Even though they did not do any of their voice recording together, they all have such great chemistry. It was true of Larry the Cable Guy, Lea, Isiah and Nathan as well.

Lea arrived just a bit late from a previous engagement. So first we chatted with just the guys. You can see from some of the pictures, how much fun we all were having.

Like the first thing that Larry the Cable Guy said after he sat down was, “Well, dagum. Sorry I’m wearing shorts. I’m just a little overdressed.” That had us laughing right from the start.

They are all so funny each in their own ways. I had wondered how much ad-libbing and input they had with their lines. Larry said that he has been improving since the first Cars movie. The director told him that as long as he’s staying close to the script, he could do whatever he wanted. So that’s actually where the dagum, etc came in.

Nathan then piped in and said, “It’s so weird because when I improv, they always go, ‘That’s great. Stick to the lines.'” That got a good chuckle from all of us.

Both Nathan and Isiah are new members of the cast of Cars 3. Isiah is voicing River Scott.

And Nathan is voicing Sterling.

Both commented how great an opportunity it was to be apart of the Cars 3 movie. Isiah said that he jumps at the chance to do something different so when this opportunity came up he was just thrilled about it. It was something different and that being in the recording booth by himself was actually liberating. “Just laying down the voice, and everything like that. But I mean, to me, that’s kind of what keeps you going, you know, is that you’re not always playing the same thing, over and over and over again.”

Nathan said that he’d do anything for Pixar. “What called me to this is an opportunity to work with Pixar. I’m not going to lie to you guys. I’ve been to the Pixar facility twice. I’ve seen every Pixar movie. I’ve seen the Pixar documentary four times. I am into Pixar. Nothing happens in a Pixar movie by accident. They tell the story, one pixel at a time. It’s very, very careful filmmaking, and it’s very methodically planned out, and you — to be a part of it, you know you’re going to be a part of a story well told, and it’s going to be beautiful, and it’s going to last. It’s going to be a story that lasts. So, over and above anything else, I will do anything for Pixar. And, point of fact, I actually did some janitorial work for them two weeks ago. I’m not picky.”

Answered in true Nathan fashion. So very charming. In fact, Nathan actually described Sterling as charming in a different interview. But after you’ve seen Cars 3, maybe charming isn’t the right word for Sterling. We found him actually a bit slimy. We asked Nathan how he’d describe Sterling.

I always find that charming, I think, is one of the more misleading directions when you’re reading a screenplay, or a script. People see “charming” and they go skeevy, and they go a little weird. Charming people are not so much interesting as they are interested. They’re saying, “Hey. You are great. You are wonderful. You are the best.” But, in this case, as a businessman first, I think he puts Lightning McQueen into a “you are the best, you are the greatest, but I do have an ulterior motive.” So I think that’s where it gets a little skeevy.

Now funny thing, our group had seen the movie the night before the interview, however, Nathan and Larry had not seen it yet. I had asked them what was their favorite part about the movie and that’s when we learned that they had yet to see it.

Isiah had though and said that he found it very emotional and that he actually teared up a bit. “…when they deal with change and aging and things like that and moving on, you know…”That’s like my career!”

He further went on to say that he thought the story would be very powerful. And I would agree. I love the story and thought it was very emotional and had a powerful message.

Larry talked a bit about ‘Mater and how he approached the emotional side of the movie.

As far as Mater is concerned, I knew when I taped it, Mater had some pretty good scenes with McQueen. When I do Mater, I want Mater to be lovable, and I want him to be funny. So, I always — whenever there’s a scene where you’re just — when it’s really sad, you want Mater to pop in and lighten the mood up a little bit.

So I hope that’s what Mater did. When you said “what’s your favorite scene in the movie,” I don’t know what it is yet, but when I did the script, I think my favorite scene would probably be Mater trying to figure out Skype.

When you’ve seen the movie, you know that there’s definitely a mentor/mentee theme. We asked Nathan, Larry and Isiah who their mentors were.

Nathan : Bob Woods, who played my uncle on One Life to Live. I wouldn’t be — I wouldn’t have moved to Los Angeles without his sage advice.

Isiah : I had a mentor in college, and he was not — he had seen me in a play in college, and he was kind of like this nutty, crazy professor that everybody kind of stayed away from, but this guy said, he pulled me aside and he says, “look, you know, I saw you in a play last night.” And he says, “I thought you were great. You got to get out of Minnesota, man. You got to go to New York, and you got to start knocking on doors.” And I thought, knocking on doors? What? Just going around to people’s apartments? Just knocking on doors? I took him literally. But then he said, “look at all of these monitors.” He said, “Someday we’re going to be able to talk to people and do our banking and — ” and I said “This guy is really nuts.”

But the one thing he told me, he says, “If you really want to be a great actor, you’ve got to start studying psychology. You’ve got to know the human condition. You’ve got to know how people tick, and how you can figure out all of these characters,” and so I thought, Okay, I’m gonna try that. And I studied psychology for about two years. And I just play a bunch of characters who’ve got problems. But it was some of the best advice I had ever gotten. And when people talk about mentorship, I always think about this one, this guy, because it’s — I really did sort of learn about the human condition, and how — what makes people do what they do, and how they believe that, you know, they’re right in what they do. So, that was some of the best advice I’d ever gotten in my life.

Larry : Mine would’ve been Jeff Foxworthy. I have known Foxworthy for 30 years, and he really gave me awesome advice about the business, and how to be kind to people, and be kind to your fans, and so he would’ve been my mentor.

Speaking of Larry the Cable Guy, did you know that Larry is not even his name? He shared how he came up with the name and how he got his start.

I was doing standup, and you always go on stage, and you’d try new stuff out. And I’m a big rodeo fan, and I used to watch mesquite championship rodeo on Sundays. I’m a country kid, so I grew up in a small town in Southeast Nebraska.

And I did this rodeo cowboy, got kind of a laugh. And so the next day I changed it to a cable installer, and it got a big laugh. And I had a buddy of mine who had a morning show, and he said, “you’ve got to call our morning show, that’s funny. You should pretend you’re the cable guy.” And so I called up. And I remember the first time — the first thing I ever said on the radio. I called up and I said, “Hey, Ron & Ron, what’s goin’ on, fellers. What’s goin’ on, fellers.” And they go, “Well, who is this?” It’s the cable guy. Y’all said y’all wanted that hookup down there, didn’t you? And they said, “Well, what’s your name?”

And I didn’t really know. And I’m going, “Uh…Larry!” Oh. It’s Larry the Cable Guy? And it just caught on, and I started calling as Larry the Cable Guy, and then I got syndicated over in Orlando, which syndicated me into Tulsa and to Baltimore. And I was a standup. I was still doing standup. But I was doing these calls while I did standup. I ended up getting syndicated, around the country, on 27 radio stations, getting up every morning, doing radio calls.

27 stations. All different times. I think I did 14 was the most I did in a day, but I’d do five days a week, for 13 years every day, doing a commentary and “get ‘er done” just started getting popular from the radio, and so then everybody just started calling me Larry. And that wasn’t my name, but it was my radio name. And so it just kind of stuck. Kind of a nickname, more than anything else. And that’s how Larry the Cable Guy came to be on stage, when I was doing a show in St Petersburg. A buddy of mine owned a comedy club, I walked in, and it said on the billboard, “Dan Whitney, AKA Larry the Cable Guy,” and both shows sold out.

And I said, “What’s going on, you got a convention here or something? I can’t find a place to park.” And they go, “No. They’re coming to see you.” And I said, “Wow. I didn’t know he was going to do that,” and I went on stage, and people started going, “Git ‘er done, git ‘er done.” And I couldn’t do my regular act. And I went into Larry the Cable Guy, and [FAKE CHEERS]. And then if I came out of the act, and [MAKES A RASPBERRY]. I couldn’t follow it. And I got off stage. And the guy, Lester McCurdy, from McCurdy’s Comedy Club, said, “Can you do your whole show like that?” And I said, “Yeah. You know. I act like a redneck all day long, ’cause I is one.

It’s like what Jeff says — ’cause I is one.” And so he took my name off, and it said “Larry the Cable Guy.” And I took the stage as Larry the Cable Guy, and then I started weeding out all of the other stuff that I had and I started rebooking dates as Larry the Cable Guy. And that’s how I was born. That was it. It was all completely by accident. I never thought it out. It just evolved into what it became, so that’s how it happened.

At this point, Lea joins us. She had the Orange Is the New Black premiere in New York the night before. Lea voices the Miss Fritter character.

Lea was asked how she got involved in the project and why she wanted to be a part of it.

Why would I want to be Miss Fritter? Have we seen her? She’s awesome. I mean, come on. Her stop sign is a buzz saw. She’s terrific. Also, I grew up where they do stock cars. I grew up where demo derby was a big deal. I grew up in a really small town on the very tip of Illinois that’s right by Kentucky. So that was like, a Friday night entertainment for me. So the idea of being the queen of the demolition derby? Awesome. And they let me say my — the high school that I went to.

A shoutout to that. That’s the side of the bus is the high school that I went to. Which is, I mean, the people of Belleville, Illinois, which is a tiny little town, they’re gonna go nuts when they see that. So I’m really — yeah. It’s kind of awesome. And so when they were — when they came at me and said “do you want to do this?” I was like, “Yeah. I have a really good idea of how to play her.” And they were all in and, as was I, so, it was awesome.

The interview time was over way too quickly. It was so much fun. Before the four went off to other press event, they stopped to take a group photo with us. And do you see who got right next to Nathan? 😉

But before he left, Nathan went back to the table and grabbed the diecast version of Sterling. You’ll have to read all about Sterling’s journey on Sherry’s blog.

Cars 3 is NOW in theaters! Let me know what you thought of it in the comments below. Did you love it as much as I did?