HIGH DEF UNIVERSE

I voice a character called Flynn Rider in the animation. Flynn is the male lead of the film and he’s the archetypal prince character, but he’s not a prince. Instead, he is a charming and an arrogant bandit. Deep down, Flynn has a good core. However, you don’t see that at the beginning of the movie. You discover this about Flynn as the story unfolds because this characteristic is brought out of him through the purity, love and naiveté of Rapunzel.

During the movie, we discover that Flynn had a crap childhood. He changed his name and he was driven towards a very selfish life because he didn’t have much fun as a child. However, he starts to change when he discovers Rapunzel. Here is a girl who has been cooped up in a tower for 18 years. She has never seen the outside world and yet she is still very loving. She’s not jaded at all.

These are two very different characters that end up learning a lot from each other on a rather crazy adventure. In fact, I like to think of Tangled as an animated, family-friendly Romancing The Stone. In my eyes, that’s exactly what the movie is like to watch.

I got a call inviting me to audition for Disney’s new animated musical – and I was immediately sold. I am a huge fan of Disney. I have been a fan ever since I was a little kid. In fact, I’ve always dreamed of being a voice in a Disney animation and I’ve always wanted to sing for Disney, so this opportunity was a dream come true.

I was told to prepare a singer-songwriter song for the audition and the first thing that came to my mind was a James Taylor track called Sweet Baby James. If somebody says ‘pop’ to me, I think of Michael Jackson or Justin Timberlake. If somebody says ‘singer-songwriter’, the first person I think of is James Taylor. There are plenty of modern singer-songwriters, but there is something about James Taylor that has always resonated with me.

I’ve sung my whole life, so I wasn’t too worried. My singing has mostly been for fun but I’ve also done a lot of musical theater, so I have booked jobs based on my voice before. It wasn’t like I was walking into the room and talking to Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson about a potential musical career.

Well, I know what I sound like when I sing. It wasn’t like I have parents that have told me my whole life, “Honey, you sing amazingly.” And then I get into sing for an audition and people scream, “Boo! You’re rubbish. Find another vocation.” I certainly felt comfortable enough in the audition room.

Karaoke is interesting because I think there is a method to the madness. I believe in choosing songs that have audience participation where everyone claps or sings along with the chorus. You’ve got to get everybody on your side and it’s easy to do that if you choose something with a great deal of audience participation.

Songs like Sweet Caroline feature a good amount of audience participation. It’s cheesy, but if it hasn’t been done all night, somebody has got to do it. I also love singing Journey, but it’s out of my key. Unless they have some kind of a key changer, I can’t really do it.

This is the problem… You don’t want to be too ironic. If you get too ironic and everyone thinks you’re trying too hard, then you fail at karaoke. Nobody does Ice Ice Baby right now. Leave it two more years and Ice Ice Baby will be back on top. Not yet, though. Leave it for now.

No, not really. I don’t think things like that ever crossed my mind.

Oh, I wish I had. Can you imagine how amazing that would’ve been? I want to be the coolest parent ever and name my son Han Solo. At first, my son would think, ‘I have the most stupid name in the world.’ And then he would slowly realize over time, ‘No, I was wrong… Han Solo is the coolest name ever. I could have been Chewbacca!’

My last name is Pugh. My middle name is Levi. The only name change I’ve gone through is dropping the Pugh and sticking with the Levi – but that’s it. It was very subtle.

Wow, that’s a tough question to answer. Well, I guess I’m a wicked video game player. When it comes to video games, I show no mercy! I can also wear the same clothes for a week straight. That’s probably the most offensive thing that I do.

It was a great experience. However, I found it a little strange because I was alone in the sound booth. I thought I might record some of the dialogue with Mandy Moore (who voices Rapunzel), but that didn’t happen. Everyone records the dialogue separately. 

I wanted Flynn to be different to my normal voice. I think that was appropriate given that it’s a fantasy world set in a medieval, renaissance-style era. If the movie was set in modern times, I’d use my regular voice – but I wanted him to sound different to my regular cadence.

I was incredibly happy, but I have to admit that the animals steal the show. When it comes to the comedy of Tangled, the gecko and the horse are outstanding. W.C. Fields said never work with kids or animals, but the gecko and the horse end up stealing my thunder.

Every Pixar movie makes me laugh uncontrollably. My friends are all starting to have little kids, so we all end up watching Pixar movies a lot. I can sit and watch Pixar movies over and over again. They never get boring.

I’ve seen all of the Pixar movies – Cars, Finding Nemo, A Bug’s Life, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Toy Story – and they all make me laugh, but Nemo is definitely the best in my book. Ellen DeGeneres is hysterical as Dory, although I think Tangled is certainly up there with the comedy, too. It certainly made me laugh out loud on numerous occasions!