Fans were surprised when the late Paul Newman was revealed to be in the cast for Cars 3, and what was more surprising still was what appeared to be new dialogue of his appearing during the film’s trailer.
Newman — the legendary and iconic actor of films such as The Hustler, Hud, and Cool Hand Luke, to a name a few – voiced the character of Doc Hudson in Cars back in 2006, before passing away two years later.
Last week’s trailer however includes vocals that are unmistakably Newman’s, leaving fans curious just how this was achieved. The film’s director Brian Fee was luckily on hand to explain just where this new dialogue came from during an interview with Cinema Blend.
“The Paul Newman voice you hear in that trailer is not actually in the film. There’s other Paul Newman stuff in the film. That was for the trailer. But we have lots of Paul Newman in the movie which was because when John [Lasseter] was recording Paul Newman in ‘Cars 1’ John always kept the tape [running]…we were always recording and Paul would tell stories in between takes and John just like [twirling motion with hand] ‘keep it going.’ We had 28 hours of Paul Newman stuff that we were able to listen to and repurpose.”
And apparently the relationship between Newman’s character and Lightning McQueen is a key part of the movie, indicating the size of the task that must have faced the crew in assembling his unused dialogue.
Cars 3 is set for release on June 16th 2017 in the States and July 14th 2017 in the UK.
Originally published May 3, 2017. Updated February 24, 2020.
