James Brolin has been delivering standout work in this industry for decades, yet Lightyear marks the very first time he’s had the opportunity to lend his voice to an animated character.
In a sense, Lightyear is to Toy Story’s Andy what a film like Star Wars is to us. Lightyear is the movie that would have made Andy want a Buzz Lightyear toy to begin with. So, if Lightyear functions as an in-world movie for Toy Story and the villain Zurg exists within the Toy Story films, that means Zurg has to have a role in Lightyear, right? He does, but I’m willing to bet it’s not quite what you expect.
With Lightyear now playing in theaters nationwide, I got the chance to chat with Brolin about voicing Zurg and had to ask him my biggest burning question; how did it take this long for him to finally get the chance to voice an animated character? His response? “I have three words — you tell me!”
From there, Brolin revisited how he fell into acting to begin with, including his need to get over a fear of being in front of the lens:
“One of the ways I accidentally backed into the business, even though I was fascinated with the business and I’d been a cinematographer and director, filmmaker since I was 15-years-old, I was 18 and I was walking down the street and somebody stopped me and said, ‘Excuse me, can I talk to you?’ And said, ‘Would you be interested in being in a commercial?’ And I said, ‘What would I have to do?’ And they said, ‘Well, all you gotta do is dress up like a young cowboy and drive this truck.’ And I said, ‘I wouldn’t have to talk, would I?’ And they said, ‘Nope! No talking.’ ‘What’s it pay? ‘$400.’ ‘Oh, I’ll take that job!’ So that was with BBDO, the largest company in the United States that did that stuff. I did two Dodge, I did a Gallo Wine commercial and suddenly I had a Screen Actors Guild card, and this meant I had to be on the other side of the camera, the lens side, which just scared the wadden out of me. So I went on and I went to school. I tried to get rid of this feeling, and I’ve almost got it 50, 60 years later.”
After warming up to the camera, Brolin racked up one screen credit after the next. However, it still wasn’t until 2021 that Brolin finally got the opportunity to put the focus on voice performance by serving as the narrator for the Netflix series Sweet Tooth. Thanks to the success of that show, Brolin was finally considered a voice actor after about five decades of acting for the camera. Here’s how he put it:
“I got assigned by a friend to narrate a series, eight episodes. And that was Robert Downey Jr. and his wife, Susan. The series became a worldwide number one on streaming for a month and because of that, Pixar became aware of me and suddenly like, ‘Okay, yeah. That’s what he does for a living,’ and I’m pick of the week! The voice of the week! After all those years.”
Looking for more from Brolin on his experience voicing Zurg in Lightyear? You can catch our full conversation in the video interview at the top of this article!
