On the heels of yesterday’s interview with Lego Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy writers Dan Hernadenz and Benji Samit (Pokémon Detective Pikachu), today we have the stars of the upcoming Disney+ four-part miniseries: Bobby Moynihan, Gaten Matarazzo, Tony Revolori, and Marsai Martin.
We first spoke to Moynihan about his performance as Jedi Bob, a temple guard who holds vigil over the “Cornerstone,” a transparent, single-stud Lego piece with the power to reshape the universe. Naturally, this led to further discussion about the 1990 Dick Tracy film’s action figure line and G.I. pirate radio from the Vietnam War.
Gordon Jackson, io9: You play Jedi Bob in this. Are you familiar with the history of the character, and how he first appeared in a 2002 Lego set? His story is finally being told now!
Bobby Moynihan: Really, the prophecy has been fulfilled. Yeah, no, I have that Lego set. I had a Jedi Bob before I got cast, and then I knew all about it, yeah.
io9: Oh wow, okay. What’s your history with him?
Moynihan: It’s a band of weird collecting.
io9: What are some of the weird things you like to collect?
Moynihan: Oh, how much time do we have? … My entire office is filled with—I never throw anything away—and I like to collect weird stuff like that.
io9: What’s your most obscure possession?
Moynihan: In the action figure world like Jedi Bob, there’s figures like the Blank from Dick Tracy, or a couple like “grail” figures that people collect in that world and I’ve always been fascinated by that. I have a couple of them.
io9: Oh cool, the Blank—you mean Madonna without the face?
Moynihan: Yeah, there was the Madonna one, but then they made one, the Blank, that was just the blank face that they only made in Canada. Stuff like that. I like weird. I like seeking out things that are hard to find.
io9: So you have a big history with Lego and Star Wars to begin with?
Moynihan: Yeah, I mean I got lucky enough, I was a big Star Wars fan. I’ve gotten to be in a couple Star Wars projects and then I got a phone call saying, “Would you like to come down to Lucasfilm, down to the the ranch and pitch a couple of jokes? We’re writing a Lego Christmas special, Star Wars Christmas special.” I got to go work on that and write some jokes. And then I met Dan and Benji through that. They were writers on that also, and we hit it off and then they called me for this. And I can’t believe I’m here doing it.
io9: And you play the mentor character in this.
Moynihan: Yeah, sort of the Obi-Wan Kenobi of this series, if you will, but he’s a little—has a little less gravitas. It’s like, Kenobi as a substitute teacher, if you will.
io9: Were you excited for that role? Like, “I’m finally playing the mentor character instead of the…”
Moynihan: Instead of like the fat friend, like I usually get? Well, I was thinking about it. I always get the silly guy. I never get the like, “You have to be mindful.” I’m playing that guy. I think for me this was like a little bit of, like, what if Alec Guinness and Liam Neeson were a little tired of being Jedi—that kind of old royalty Britishness to it, but then also being kind of like, “Okay, let’s just get through this.” I like the mix of those two. He’s not the best Jedi and he knows it. So yeah, he guards the temple, the Cornerstone. He doesn’t want anyone to remake the universe, which is made of Lego.
io9: Do you feel like there’s a little bit of like a contradiction in the “play with Lego, but don’t play God” message the story conveys?
Moynihan: Well, I think that’s the whole point: why is he doing that? Where does that come from? Someone who is trying to push that, but also may have the trauma of not wanting to go. It’s like, if you have the power to change everything, do you do it? It’s not just a silly Lego cartoon.
io9: There is a heaviness.
Moynihan: He’s a very, very, very conflicted man.
io9: Yeah, I’ve noticed that in a lot of these movies based on Lego or building blocks, in order to dramatize it. “What are the ethics of playing with something outside of yourself?”
Moynihan: Of taking someone apart and putting them back together. Yes. Or taking apart—I’m thinking of the scene where they’re trying to get away and he puts wings and then legs on the ship. That’s someone’s property. Technically, he’s damaging other people’s property by building. So yeah, it’s hard being a Jedi man. It’s a grey area.
io9: Getting back into some of the other fandoms you’re into—
Moynihan: Fandom? I’m just a fan of all that kind of stuff. Anything like… as a kid, it was underground kinds of things, anything that felt like, “I got this from somebody and I wasn’t supposed to.” We used to pass VHS tapes or Jerky Boys tapes and stuff like that. I’m much older than you, I’m guessing. Do you know who the Jerky Boys [are]?
io9: Oh, no—the prank callers, right?
Moynihan: Yeah.
io9: So if you were into tape trading, you ever come across some really bizarre or grotesque in that field?
Bobby Moynihan: Not like grotesque, uh… probably the opposite. Just like weird comedy stuff. Now I’m remembering there was a guy, Dave Rabbit or something like that. I found these tapes, it was a guy that had a pirate radio station during Vietnam when you weren’t supposed to—like an illegal radio station. And he would come on and all the soldiers loved him, but it was like a pirate radio station. I think his name was Dave Rabbit. I went down that hole for a couple months where I was like, “Whoa, this is nuts.” He did this, and he did like comedy sketches and bits—he was a Howard Stern for the soldiers kind of thing. It was interesting.
io9: That’s awesome. So, wow, um, uh, back to Lego, I guess?
Moynihan: Yeah, yeah, back to Lego.
io9: Do you have a favorite Lego set?
Moynihan: As of late, I really like that Batman one, the ’89 Batman one that they put out, the fold-out one. It’s the entire Batcave. It’s pretty amazing. Now, I mean, I have my own Jedi Starfighter, so now that’s forever my favorite. The Home Alone one is pretty fascinating.
io9: Oh, the recreation of the house?
Moynihan: Yeah, they have the whole house. It’s fantastic.
io9: Have you ever submitted to Lego Ideas before?
Moynihan: That’s so weird that you said that. I just did. Do you know Jon Sosis, by any chance? He does a Lego show on the internet, Building Friendships. Shout out to Jon. We tried to do the [Saturday Night Live] stage, the main stage of SNL, with a “Weekend Update” thing. We just submitted that. But I think they denied it for some reason.
io9: Oh, really?
Moynihan: They hate me.
io9: Maybe they prefer the the ’90s cast.
Moynihan: I did it very aggressively.
io9: What about favorite sci-fi? Books, movies?
Moynihan: Favorite sci-fi movies—Star Wars, obviously. All those. Anything like that. I enjoy being entertained with fantastical things. It’s weird I wasn’t into Star Trek as a kid. I missed Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Dungeons & Dragons. I was aware of all that but that’s not necessarily my wheelhouse. I was more into each cartoon Filmation did, [and also shows like] Bionic Six and SilverHawks.
io9: Filmation did the Star Trek cartoon, though, right?
Moynihan: I believe so, yes. They did, like, the Ghostbusters but it wasn’t Ghostbusters, it was like the ape and…
io9: The Ghostbusters from like the ’40s or ’70s they brought back?
Moynihan: The ’40s, yeah. I was also Orko [from Filmation’s He-Man and the Masters of the Universe] for Halloween two years in a row.
Next, we spoke to Gaten Matarazzo (Stranger Things), who plays Force-sensitive nerf herder, Sig Greebling; Tony Revolori (Spider-Man: No Way Home), who plays his brother, Dev Greebling—good in one world, evil in the other; and Marsai Martin (Black-ish), who plays Yesi Scala, the friend they’re both in love with, to discuss Lego, Star Wars, and their favorite movie villains.
io9: What’s your history with these franchises, Gaten?
Gaten Matarazzo: I grew up on both. Star Wars is kind of a formative franchise in my love of cinema and my love of all things that have to do with weird-dom as a whole. It’s the defining cornerstone piece of why I love what I do, and it will always be. I dressed up as Obi-Wan—I remember for a month straight I wore a Padawan braid. My mom had braided it up for me and added a clip to and I wore it to school. It was pretty hardcore and it remains so.
io9: So going into this, you knew who Kit Fisto was?
Matarazzo: Oh my gosh, do I know who Kit Fisto was? I know what form of lightsaber combat Kit Fisto uses. Form I, by the way.
io9: Perfect. What about you, Marsai?
Marsai Martin: My history with Star Wars, unfortunately, is very, very minimal. I love all Star Wars rides. I also have a bunch of cousins that are obsessed with Star Wars so I always hear it from them. So, to be able to be a part of such a big franchise, it’s really, really cool to make a mark on. And then Lego has also just been in my life for a very long time. I used to have a whole bunch of Legos because it’s a very big self-care thing. It’s so therapeutic, something about building Legos and just putting it together.
And I know it’s kind of trending right now, the Lego flowers—they rock, they’re awesome. They’re so good. Like they’re at the top point. I have a little sister who is also obsessed with Legos, but she pretty much breaks them down. They’re all over the floor in our house. So you gotta be careful. But having the two worlds collide like that is so amazing, super dope to do, while also feeling different, feeling new and exciting, and for old, young, whoever. It’s widely universal to anybody that is in love with both things.
io9: How about you, Tony?
Tony Revolori: I love Legos. Lego bricks, Lego sets. I’ve been loving them since I was a kid, so I absolutely adore them and I’ve been a big fan of the Star Wars universe since I was a little kid, you know? Growing up with seeing the prequels in theaters, you know, and those shoddy lightsabers that we would get from Toys R Us, if we remember what those stores are, and such. I’m a big fan of both, and the fact that I get to be a part of this is just a huge honor and I’m grateful.
io9: You’re playing another villain in this. Do you feel like that’s becoming your thing after the Spider-Man movies and Scream VI?
Revolori: I absolutely love it, because I think no villain is the same. Really, I think if you play different villains, no matter what, they’ll all have different backstories. They’re just interesting characters ’cause they’re interesting. I think as an actor, you do these human studies on your characters to kind of dive deep into them and figure them out. And there’s none more interesting than the villains. It’s so fun. It’s so good. What makes you tick the way you tick? What made you evil? And if you’re just evil, then okay. I’d be like, “Okay.” No one’s ever just evil, though. No character. There’s always an origin story. Just bullied as a kid. There’s always an origin story, you know?
io9: Who’s your favorite villain, then?
Revolori: Oh no, you know what? I’m gonna bring it back to someone who’s also a part of this show, in Mark Hamill’s Joker, who’s incredible, yet such a playful tone. So villainous and scary. It was wonderful, to be honest, it’s just an honor to be able to do work with him in the voiceover world. I was lucky enough to work with him on a show years ago, but being able to work with him in a voiceover capacity is just a true honor.
io9: What about you, Marsai?
Martin: Oh my goodness. I don’t know, that’s really hard. I feel like Darth Vader is always the go-to villain for anybody. Also, when it comes to live action, I’ve always loved the antagonist characters that… you don’t really know that they’re the villain until the middle of the film. I love when movies turn out to be like that. I don’t know if you guys have ever seen Dreamgirls. The one with Beyoncé and Jennifer Hudson and Jamie Foxx. [There’s] something about a character like that, where you feel like he’s beloved in the beginning, and then in the middle [you realize], “Oh no, there’s some other BS going on.” I love characters like that, that kind of slowly turn into the antagonist and you know that they’re the problem.
io9: What about you, Gaten?
Matarazzo: Darth Vader’s like the quintessential villain. And it’s so brilliant, because over the course of something—almost to the opposite effect of one who’s revealed slowly to be a villain—is [a character] that is slowly revealed to, maybe not necessarily not be a villain, but [someone with] an origin you can empathize with. I think what’s compelling about antagonists in general is that it’s always fun to explore what brings something or somebody to that point.
In my non-serious way of looking at it, I think Syndrome from The Incredibles rocks. Because he’s just a snot-nosed little kid. He’s a snot-nosed little kid who’s kinda good at robotics. And he’s just a spoiled little bitch. And I think it’s really funny. Because I think it’s such a funny duality between Mr. Incredible and Syndrome. Because Mr. Incredible’s like, probably his biggest pet peeve is snot-nosed little kids, because he’s a dad—and watching that dynamic of being like, “Oh, if my kid ever ended up like this…” And I think it’s truthfully hilarious, consistently so funny.
io9: To close, any Star Wars heroes you’d like to see as villains, as they are in this after the pole shift?
Matarazzo: Ooh, yes, yeah. I’d like to see R2-D2 and C-3PO in a Bonnie and Clyde run-and-gun bounty hunter relationship.
Revolori: I would love to see Oscar Isaac’s character from the new trilogy, [Poe Dameron], I’d love to see him paired up with, maybe, Han Solo. Yeah. Like truly, truly bad.
Martin: I don’t have one. No secrets.
Lego Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy arrives September 13 on Disney+.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
VIA: gizmodo.com
