Lee Majdoub is on cloud nine right now. Not only is he one of the stars of Sonic the Hedgehog, the live-action film adaptation based on the famous video game franchise, he also got to star alongside the legendary Jim Carrey. Lee plays Agent Stone, who is Robotnik’s very loyal right-hand man. Robotnik is played by Carrey. Agent Stone is a new character created for the film and Lee found freedom in bringing a fresh character into the mix.
“What’s nice about it is that you’re not so worried about trying to emulate a character that’s already been developed or trying to copy that,” Lee told HollywoodLife. “There was a lot of freedom there. Pretty much the beginning stages of Agent Stone was that he was just the straight man to give Robotnik someone to talk to. Through the creative process and getting on set and chatting with Jeff Fowler, the director, and chatting with Jim, we started to flesh out this relationship that you start to see on the screen between Robotnik and Stone and this admiration that Stone has for Robotnik. Those quirky little moments and the abuse and everything, it was pretty crazy to flesh that out creatively together.”
Lee revealed that Jim “meant a lot” to him when he was growing up, so getting the chance to work alongside him was a once in a lifetime experience. Lee called the moment he met Jim “indescribable.” He added, “You hear a lot of times to be careful about meeting the people that you grew up admiring or whatnot because it’s going to be a disappointment. It was anything but that with Jim. They introduced us off the top. He’s so positive and had this loving energy. He gave me a big hug and welcomed me to the team. We got to work and talked quite a bit. Like I said, it was more of the pressure that I was putting on myself.”
Lee and Jim had an effortless collaboration and the actor said that there was “constant evolution” on set. “His work ethic is unmatched. He’s so precise. He puts so much into his work,” Lee gushed about Jim. He also revealed how one particularly memorable scene made it into the movie — after just one take! “We’d have something set up, we would do it a few times, and we would start to evolve,” Lee said. “The moment where we walk out of the bar and he says, ‘Now that’s what I call good cop, bad cop.’ Initially, we had come up with something different and we did it a bunch of times. And then there was just one moment where we’re going back and starting the take over again and Jim goes, ‘I want to try something different.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, cool. What do you have in mind.’ He said, ‘I don’t know yet.’ So I just decided to stay loose, and then you got that little throat thing. He didn’t make any contact whatsoever. It was just in the moment. We just started to feed off each other really well. I saw that arm coming in and I was like, ‘Okay, I know what he’s doing.; Funny enough, we only did that once. That one take is what you see in the film.”
Sonic the Hedgehog was released Feb. 14 and has made over $300 million at the worldwide box office so far. While a sequel hasn’t been confirmed yet, Lee revealed the famous Sonic character he’d like to see pop up in a potential sequel. “I dug Knuckles in the game, so I would not be against as a fan seeing Knuckles at some point,” Lee told HollywoodLife. “If there were a sequel, I’d love to see knuckles. I don’t know anything. I haven’t heard anything. But as a fan, I want to see the interaction between Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles.”