Wild Robot's Lupita Nyong'o explains how her initial inspiration from Siri and Alexa damaged her voice

While the animated film of the summer is here with Inside Out 2prepare to cry over the bond between a robot and a gosling in this autumn The wild robot. The DreamWorks film based on the middle grade novel stars Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o as Roz, a robot who finds herself starting her program in the middle of a desert island and bonding of friendship with her woodland animals – notably by becoming a mother. an orphaned gosling. While making the film over three years, Nyong’o recalled the toll it had on his voice.

When CinemaBlend attended an event at DreamWorks Studios in Glendale, California, in May, Lupita Nyong’o spoke about her journey playing Roz alongside writer/director Chris Sanders. During the discussion, Nyong’o said this about finding the voice of the animated character:

The beginning of the film, I would say, was the biggest departure from my resting voice. And that’s where it’s the greenest, right? So he’s a sophisticated being, but on this island. She’s like a newborn, right? She is learning everything for the first time. And so, I was hoping to convey that kind of openness and I would say like that programmed optimism that these things like Siri and all that, try to relay. You know, that high-pitched, open, friendly, non-threatening feminine sound was what I was looking for. And it’s a workout. It’s vocal training, that’s for sure. And maybe I did it too long and too hard, and I paid the price.

Nyong’o was first inspired by the voice assistants on our phones and other electronic devices when it came to playing Roz, but wow, did she not realize how much that would affect her voice. When the actress spoke to Weekly Entertainment, she explained how it damaged her voice even more. In his words:

It lasted four days and we did four or five hour sessions every day. And because Roz starts off with a more factory sound, she has this overall positive inflection and tone. And then, as she becomes more integrated into the animal kingdom of which she is a part, her voice grows more. And so actually the hardest part for me was his first voice, which is this very high and positive (sound) – it’s a different resonance than mine, so it was quite acrobatic for me to do that . It was a day where we started with that voice, moved to his second and third voice, and then back to the first voice. The repetition of going into this high-pitched, highly resonant headspace caused me vocal injury. I ended up developing a vocal polyp and spent three months in silence.

In the interview, Nyong’o clarified that she literally spent three months in silence after her doctor told her she could “avoid surgery” simply by getting plenty of vocal rest. The actress decided to commit to it and was able to heal her voice by “keeping quiet.” It’s hard not to think about the coincidence of the story involving her too be part of this summer A silent place spin off. She literally couldn’t speak, it just wasn’t because of an alien invasion!

At the DreamWorks event, Nyong’o also talked about how important it was for her to discuss Roz’s arc with Chris Sanders. She knew she was in good hands considering the filmmaker is behind films like Lilo and Stitch And How to train your dragon, but she needed some convincing to play a robot who has no emotions. Nyong’o shared that as an actress, her “currency” is emotion, but after their many discussions, she arrived at how she wanted to play DreamWorks’ new protagonist.

The wild robot caught our attention as something exciting to anticipate during Universal CinemaCon 2024 Panel and through its moving trailer. The DreamWorks film hits theaters on September 27. Discover the others Movies 2024 are waiting to arrive here on CinemaBlend.