Hollywood star Samuel L Jackson reprises his role as Lucius Best aka Frozone, who has the ability to create ice and freeze surfaces with his hands and is the best friend of Mr Incredible.
Jackson speaks about returning to the role after 14 years, for Incredibles 2, and having a laugh over kids who recognise him in public. Excerpts:
Frozone has an important role to play in this movie right in the beginning, as he introduces the Incredible family to someone. Could you tell us more about that?
Lucius says he met Winston Deavor somewhere. They have a business, and they are interested in finding a way to get Supers back to legality.
So, of course, any Super who likes being Super would be interested in that proposition. The Deavors come up with this plan to make the Supers palatable to the public again...
There seems to be a deeper underlying message in the plot, with Helen going off to work, and Bob becoming a stay-at-home dad. What are your thoughts on this?
The traditional thought of what a husband with three kids left to his own devices would be with the family because the wife is outside the home now for a while.
She’s off doing the breadwinning thing. Bob/Mr Incredible thinks he knows what has been going on and thinks he can do it. He thinks he can wake up, make breakfast, send the kids off to school, do the laundry, change the baby and do all that stuff. It sounds mundane and easy, but it’s a much more difficult job than most guys would think.
Technology has changed a lot since the first Incredibles, 14 years ago. I assume nothing has changed much in terms of performing or recording voice-overs but did anything change for you? Did you actually perform any of the movements for Frozone, or did you just straight up work the voice?
I try to straight up just do the voice. I listen to what Brad wants me to do and how he wants it done. I literally don’t know how Frozone is moving sometimes, so they tell me, ‘he’s making ice and going around here and he shoots some ice out of his hands’, so I do it according to how Brad wants it.
You’re revisiting a character 14 years later. But, in the timelines of the movie, it’s not 14 years later. Could you imagine picking up a character now to revisit 14 years later, to continue being him? If yes, which one?
Yes, my character from Long Kiss, Goodnight. I would love to see what Mitch is up to now, or even have Mitch run into his daughter, who is probably grown up by now, to just sit down and talk about her mom.
Disney did this film. And, Disney also works the Avengers. We would love to see Nick Fury work with the Incredibles. How do you think he would handle the Incredibles?
He could probably make really good use of that family. Nick Fury is essentially a spy, that’s what he has always been, and to be able to take a nuclear family like that and implant them somewhere would be his idea. It would almost be like watching the Americans with superpowers.
It’s interesting to see you in a role where you are not cursing, in an animated children’s movie. Have you done children’s programming of any kind, or was this your first time?
I did a couple of animated films, and I actually did a children’s theatre in Atlanta, when I was in college. I worked at an improvisational theatre called the Academy Theatre.
My wife, me and three other people did a show called Something in a Box. We had a big refrigerator box that we painted with different scenes, and we would go to schools and ask kids, ‘What are your favourite fears?’ They would write down their fears, and we would pick 2-3 up, and we would act them out.
We would also get the kid who wrote down that fear and give him a product called Dr Woolapowers Placating Placebo.
TV premiere of Incredibles 2 on June 23 at 1 pm & 9 pm on Star Movies Select HD.