Captain America star Chris Evans reveals how he got Tim Allen out of his head to play Buzz Lightyear

Chris Evans reveals how he got Tim Allen out of his head to play Buzz Lightyear and Taika Waititi speaks up on the joys of voice acting and not having to wear pants to work.

Chris Evans remembers how nervous he was the first time he had to say “to infinity and beyond” while voicing the title character in Lightyear.

The much-loved catchphrase was made one of the most famous in cinema history by Tim Allen in Pixar’s 1995 trailblazing debut feature film Toy Story and the Captain America star admits that his first stab at the line in the recording booth for the new spin-off was a “shameless, unapologetic rip-off”.

“I just said ‘I’m doing Tim and I don’t care’,” he says with a laugh over Zoom call. “It makes you feel so nervous to hear yourself out loud – it almost feels wrong. It’s like trying to say ‘Bond, James Bond’ and you’re like ‘nope, nope, nope – that’s for someone else’.”

But Lightyear – which purports to be the movie that the original Buzz Lightyear toy was inspired by making it a prequel, a sequel and a spin-off all at once – has been written to show a different side of the character. Rather than Allen’s well-meaning idiot toy who thinks he’s an intrepid astronaut from Toy Story (and its three sequels), this version is an actual Space Ranger marooned on a distant planet and as such needed rather more gravitas.

Chris Evans voices Buzz Lightyear in Pixar’s new Toy Story spin-off, Lightyear.

Producer MacLaine Gayln Susman, a Pixar veteran who worked on the original 1995 film, and director Angus MacLane, who was determined to become a filmmaker after seeing it, thought that Evans had just the right combination of seriousness, playfulness, depth and warmth they wanted.

“He’s great at both comedic and dramatic and heroic,” says Susman. ‘He can be a little clueless without sounding like an idiot, because that’s just not going to be entertaining for an hour and a half straight.”

Evans admits he was sceptical at first, mostly because of the Allen factor (with whom, coincidentally he shares a birthday) and what those movies had meant to him as a teenager.

“He is Buzz Lightyear to me too – I grew up on these movies,” he says. “So, you certainly want to use it as a template. It’s supposed to be the movie that the toy is based on so there has to be some understanding of connective tissue and where that nexus is. And he did such a good job, I would be a fool to not absorb some of the choices. But at the same, time you have to kind of make some kind of fresh track in the snow.”

“It’s in your head and you want to incorporate it, but at the same time you want to make sure that you are not just trying to do an impression because you will undercut the depth of the character.”

Chris Evans, pictured at last year’s MTV Movie and TV Awards had just the right blend of talents for the rebooted Buzz Lightyear. Picture: Michael Tran/AFP

Susman says that once she and MacLane had made it clear that they wanted him to do his own thing, it was an easy sell to the animation fanatic, who was prepared to go above and beyond and proved himself to be a natural in his first leading voice role.

“He just brought so much,” Susman says. “He was passionate about the project from day one. He was always like, ‘call me anytime – I’m here’. He was just really into it and you hear that you hear it in his performance that he’s having fun.”

Susman and MacLane also had another secret weapon from the Marvel world in their disposal in the form of Thor director Taika Waititi. The multitalented, Oscar-winning Kiwi somehow managed to squeeze in recording the role of one of Buzz Lightyear’s fledgling Space Ranger squad, Mo Morrison, to his busy schedule of writing and directing Thor: Love and Thunder in Sydney, creating the TV comedy Reservation Dogs, directing and starring in the recent hit Our Flag Means Death and playing a villainous gaming guru in Free Guy.

Buzz Lightyear and his crew of novice Space Rangers, including Mo, voiced by Taika Waititi, back right.

His astonishing run of form has earned him a place on Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential List and the day before he appeared at the star-studded bash in New York City to celebrate the honour, he’s all smiles and laughs on the same Zoom call as his Lightyear co-star Evans.

In fact, despite the fact that the pair have never acted in the same room together, he wants the world to know that technically, he’s now been in three movies with the Hollywood heart-throb. First there was Avengers: Endgame, with Evans’ Captain America front and centre and Waititi’s motion-captured rock man Korg in a blink-and-you’ll miss it battle scene. Then there was Evans’ one-line cameo (“what the shit?”) in Free Guy. And now a Pixar blockbuster – even though all of the voice actors worked remotely and never met.

“So, this is our third film together,” Waititi says. “We’re just catching up to Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.”

Waititi is no stranger to voice acting – and in fact earned an Outstanding Character Voiceover Performance Emmy nomination for his work as the droid IG-11 on Star Wars spin-off the Mandalorian – but has come to realise what a specialised skill it is. But is it the freedom of the recording booth that’s appealing to him or more the fact that the sartorially gifted polymath doesn’t have to wear pants to work if he doesn’t want to?

Taika Waititi, pictured with girlfriend Rita Ora, says he loves the challenge of voice acting. Picture: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images.

“That’s pretty much it for me,” he says with a laugh. “It’s a more relaxed environment and you get to play around. I don’t think I ever think about my voice if I am acting but I started thinking about it more and more in the booth because it’s all you can hear. And you just start picking up on the tone, tiny changes you can do, little nuances in your voice … it’s kind of new ground for me so it was really fun to experience it.”

In addition to his comedic talents and love of improvising, MacLane says that working with a fellow director in Waititi was a gift on Lightyear.

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“I was just impressed with his candour and generosity,” MacLane says. He was like, ‘Hey, you’re living with this, tell me what you want upfront because I know what it’s like to be in that situation and I don’t want to waste your time’. That kind of generosity, and frankness from such a gifted performer and filmmaker was really nice to have.”

Lightyear opens in cinemas on Thursday.

Originally published as Captain America star Chris Evans reveals how he got Tim Allen out of his head to play Buzz Lightyear