Cars 3 Interview With Nathan Fillion, Larry the Cable Guy, Lea DeLaria, & Isiah Whitlock Jr.

I can’t believe it was just a week ago and I was sitting two seats away from Nathan Fillion, Larry the Cable Guy, Lea DeLaria, & Isiah Whitlock Jr. for a group interview about their work on Disney Pixar’s Cars 3 movie!  I was in LA for the Cars 3 Event that was exclusive to bloggers and we attended the Red Carpet and Interviewed the cast!  If you have already read my exciting interview with stars Owen Wilson, Kerry Washington, Cristela Alonzo, and Armie Hammer this is the perfect follow up!

During our interview it started with the stars Isiah Whitlock Jr. (the best voice in Hollywood), Larry the Cable Guy (the funniest hard working comedian), Nathan Fillion (Mr. Handsome), and of course Lea DeLaria (my OITNB star and of course Italian actress)!  These stars played HUGE roles in the film!

Nathan Fillion is new to the franchise and he is quite the know-it-all!  His character he voices is “Sterling”.

Larry the Cable Guy the comedian whose voice is very recognizable plays America’s favorite and funniest Cars’ character, “Mater”!

Lea DeLaria is also new to the franchise and she plays very fun, strong, rough & tough good gal (spoiler), “Miss Fritter”!

Isiah Whitlock Jr. plays the voice of knowledge in Cars 3 and his character Isaiah voices is “River Scott”.

Our interview started and Lea rushed in after going from OITNB debut in New York to Cars 3 in LA which she referred to as the “ying and the yang” of her career.  I find it a testament to a good career when you can show that much of a range of jobs on your resume!  Not that Lea needs to build up her resume because she is already awesome.

Cars 3 Interview With Nathan Fillion, Larry the Cable Guy, Lea DeLaria, & Isiah Whitlock Jr.

Question: Was there any improv on the lines?

Larry: “There was a few parts where Mater was supposed to be doing something, but he was supposed to be singing a song, and we had a couple of things, but we didn’t know if he liked it. And they said, “Look, need to come up with something else. Just come up with something else, and next time we tape, we’ll do those,” so I went home and I wrote a bunch of limericks.”

Nathan: “It’s so weird. Because when I improv, they always go, “That’s great, stick to the lines.”

Isiah: “I always say, just, look, I’m just gonna start talking, cut me off when you’re ready to cut me off. Just tell me. Just tell me to stop, okay? But…” (Nathan cuts him off and tells him to stop during this part of the interview. LOL!)

Question: (Isiah) How did it feel to do something different than the Wire?

Isiah: “Great. I mean, I always jump at the chance to do, you know, something different. Different characters. And this opportunity came along and I was just thrilled about it. It was totally different. You know, I was in the booth by myself, y’know, with my own imagination, and I found it quite liberating.”

Question: Nathan, I read something in a different interview where you’d described Sterling as “charming.” He kind of felt a little slimy to me, so what part…?

Nathan:That’s fair, that’s fair. 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.”

Question: Nathan, you’ve played some memorable characters on TV. And you’ve also voiced some characters. What do you think your favorite part about Sterling is? What you called you to this?

Nathan: What called me to this is an opportunity to work with Pixar. I’m gonna — 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.

Question: Out of the three, it’s my favorite because of that emotional aspect. And, Larry, for you, doing the other two, was that a little different, because it does have more heart and emotion to it than the other two?

Larry: “I gotta tell you, I — these are always hard questions to ask, because when we do the voices, we don’t see anybody else, we don’t know anything else, we know the script, we kind to know what’s supposed to happen, but you don’t really see anybody else, you don’t interact with anybody else. So, when you’re doing your emotional part that you’re supposed to be doing, you’re just doing it with John Lassiter sitting on a chair, with a piece of paper, telling you, “Okay, this is what is gonna happen” and he’s gonna — and so you do the part.”

Question: Talk about the mentor, mentee relationship in the movie. Who are some of your mentors, either professionally or personally?

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.”

Larry: “You know what’s crazy? That’s my mine too!

Nathan: “So odd.”

Isaiah: “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.”

During the interview, Larry also shared how he came up with Larry the Cable Guy and how it was just a character in a standup that really caught on. He use to call into radio shows and that character continued to grow.

We also talked about social media and how they all love to interact with their fans.  They love twitter and Lea is more of an Instagram gal!

Question: Can you share how you became involved in the project? And why did you want to do it?

Lea: Why did I want — 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.”

Question: Lea, one of my fans wanted to know, who do you like playing more: Miss Fritter or Boo?

Lea: Oh. That’s rough Well. I’m kind of gender fluid, so I’m going to say both. That was an adult joke. That is — I gotta say, that’s really hard, you know. But Boo pays a whole lot more, so I’m going with Boo.

About Cars 3:

Blindsided by a new generation of blazing-fast cars, the legendary Lighting McQueen finds himself pushed out of the sport that he loves. Hoping to get back in the game, he turns to Cruz Ramirez, an eager young technician who has her own plans for winning. With inspiration from the Fabulous Hudson Hornet and a few unexpected turns, No. 95 prepares to compete on Piston Cup Racing’s biggest stage.

Cars 3 is now playing in theaters (released on June 16, 2017)!  Be sure to check out my Cars 3 World Premiere photos!  Don’t forget to read my review!