Since I’ve never seen the show 30 Rock before (which is what he says most people recognize him from) my fan girl feelings were solely for him being the voice of Baymax.
Here’s the facts: Baymax is a robot. He cannot think or feel so all the warm fuzzy feelings we feel for him are the gaps in what he can and cannot do made up by us. It’s interesting because I never thought of that before Scott said this:
I think the audience does a lot of the work for Baymax because he does skirt along in a kind of, impartiality emotionally but I get to lean on either side of him just a little bit, to invite the emotions to flood in from the audience. So it’s a lot of inferral on the audience’s part, and projection. It was a bit of a challenge not to go too far off that line, but still communicate something emotionally, because he really is, we decided pretty early on that he does not have that kind of emotional life. It is all programming but then in spite of that decision on our part, the emotion, his emotional life does kind of creep in here and there.
Scott said he was able to find Baymax’s voice after trying a few things, but then seeing a picture of the character. His soft, huggable exterior led him to the voice we now know and love. The interesting part of his story with the voice is when Baymax is running low on batteries. They decided to make Scott act like he was drunk and assume that is what a robot would sound like (and act like, really) if he were running low on batteries.
I love the way that Scott thinks for Baymax. He was talking to Daniel Henney before our interview and he said to him:
Wouldn’t it be great to be egoless and helpful your whole life and every day?
It would be great to be egoless and helpful everyday. I wish I had a Baymax in my life.
Scott mentioned that he would find himself continuing to talk in the voice as he would go home and live normal life. He said that as he would meet children who wanted to hear the voice he would be nervous that they wouldn’t like him since he doesn’t really resemble Baymax but as soon as he would start talking the children would get wide eyes and big smiles and accept him as Baymax.
He also said that occasionally he would leave messages on people’s voice mail or answering machines in Baymax’s voice making up a big story. He said it was pretty funny and always well received.
My favorite part of Baymax is his fist bump noise “Ba-la-la-la-la” which was created by Scott. He said they let him improv a lot of things throughout the movie and make it his own. He has a background in acting and improv and so he was able to do it well.
My favorite part of the interview is when Scott was asked how being a silent hero has changed him.
I see the value in just entertaining without needing to feed my own ego. And there’s a certain satisfaction in being a stage actor where you get an immediate response, and you can walk off and say, ah, that was great. And people think I’m great, you know. That’s part of the reward of that. With this, it is bigger than me, and I know I’m a small part of what makes Baymax Baymax and so lovable, because Baymax is this diamond with every facet being a different person. And, I’m just lucky enough to be kind of the face of the character, but when we talk about Baymax, it’s not me, you know. It’s everyone who worked on it, who decided how he walks and how he blinks, all of that.
I loved getting to know Scott Adsit better as well as Baymax and all that went into the making of the character we love.
Speaking of Baymax, I was able to ask him 3 questions and he made me video replies! Check them out!
