For those who aren’t familiar with Sarah Vowell, she is the original voice of Violet in the 2004 Incredibles movie, so it was a pleasure to get to chat with her all these years later about reprising the role. Huck Milner is our new voice of Dash, and he is brand new to the movie business and already has a favorite superhero, himself. Of course, why wouldn’t he choose his very first role?
He did go on to chose another superhero, the one, and only Flash, his reasoning, “I like people who are fast, because they’re just fast” says the boy who is playing “Dash.”
Both Sarah and Huck praised working with Brad Bird, as did all of the actors we interviewed. Huck said how fun Brad Bird made working on the film and Sarah went on to add, “I just trust him so much, especially after the first film. He always uses the best take, and he is really entertaining. He is an exceptional voice actor himself. I trust him and because he really does believe in me.”
Speaking of her part as Violet in the first film, we asked how that came about. “I think Brad was in his car listening to the radio and heard one of my public radio documentaries and was so taken with the gravitas and maturity of my voice that he made me into a junior high student who becomes a superhero,” she laughed.
Of course when interview superhero’s you often wonder what the real actors’ powers would be. Huck went right back to the super speed power again because he said he is super slow in real life so he wants to be able to go somewhere and then just come back and be like he was there the whole time. Sarah joked that “as a middle-aged lady, I would love super strength to just open a jar of jam.” Hah, wouldn’t we all love that power?
Moving on to how Huck became interested in acting, we asked when it happened? “I didn’t really decide, but when I was four my sisters were in plays and they introduced me to plays. I just really loved them. So, I just loved the theater.” This is HUck’s first big job, although something tells me that we will be seeing a lot from this guy.
Playing two of the most popular characters in the film, there have to be favorite moments that all of the actors have of their characters. Sarah told us hers, “In the first movie, there was that moment in the cave on the island when they need to go save Bob and Violet is like I don’t know if I can do this, and her mother says you’ve gotta step up and she decides, okay, I’m gonna try. Then she goes out of the cave, and she stands up and almost does the superhero pose and puts her mask on.”
Huck didn’t really have a favorite moment, although he admitted to feeling a bit annoyed at hearing himself in the film. He was also worried about what his friends were going to think of him being in the movie. Would they congratulate him or make fun of him? I say, they better congratulate him because he did a fantastic job and come on, he’s in one of the biggest movies of the Summer!!
So Dash is a lot like a little boy with a lot of energy running around, and Violet is a lot like a teenage girl, which in this film you get to see more of that angst. Sarah explained what Violet represents to her by saying, “Like all the members of the family, their powers are stemmed from the psychology of like wherever that person is at their stage in life. So, especially when the first movie starts, she (Violet) hasn’t really developed her powers yet, but she has them and they reflect kind of her insecurities and her annoyances.
So, becoming invisible is sort of like that teenage girl thing where you just wanna hide. Also her force fields, the I don’t want to let you in part. But then as she develops her powers and becomes her person and comes into her own and learns how to use the powers — and not only learns how to use the powers but enjoys using the powers, then they become her strengths. She kind of goes through the most growth of any character just because that is what is a teenager does.”
Sarah went on to tell us how much she enjoyed the storyline of Elastigirl going off to work and Bob having to stay home with the kids. It is very relevant to this day and age. “I would say culturally for us as a society, it is maybe everyone gets to become the person they’re supposed to be and they all get to be who they are equally and they all work together. And each of their individual powers, using those collectively for the greater good. Like, to me like that is an exciting, functional society where everyone gets to do that. When you see them all working together, Frozone and the family, and each person contributing what they’re best at, I don’t know if that’s political, but that’s the country I wanna live in.”
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Disclosure: I was provided with an all-expense trip to LA by Walt Disney Studios to attend these events. All opinions are 100% my own.
Dianna Ranere