Toy Story 4 is finally going to debut in the cinemas this year. And a lot of attention is going to Keanu Reeves and the character he will voice.
In the movie Keany will voice the role of Duke Caboom. Duke is an action figure with a bike. He loves to yell “Kaboom!” every now and then.
Duke is coming from the 1970s and loves to talk with catch-phrases and be all energetic and crazy. “I wanted to make sure I didn’t do anything that would go into Tim Allen’s space as Buzz Lightyear,” Reeves, 54, tells EW.
“That was one thing I was really paying attention to when I was thinking about the character and how he would talk. So I made Duke a little more gravelly but still tried to give him energy and a big personality.… I just thought that Duke should love what he does. He’s the greatest stuntman in Canada! I wanted him to be constantly doing poses on the bike while he was talking, to have this great extroverted passion.”
Reeves loves Caboom very much. So, much he uses his catch-phrases during interviews with the media. Filmmakers know that if Keanu gets intrigued about something, he goes into it 110% and wants it perfect.
So, when he liked Duke, director Josh Cooley immediately saw that: “Once Keanu came to the table, he was just asking all of these great questions about the character… and it made us realize that we weren’t digging deep enough for this character and there’s a real opportunity to have him support Woody’s story in a much bigger way”, he says.
Cooley says the original plan for Duke wasn’t for him to be so deep of character. “But I wanted to hear the honesty in the character and the truth come out and not just that we’re playing a crazy character. And so there’s a bit of an intensity to Duke, and I knew Keanu could do that, but I didn’t know if he could do the comedic side of it, and I was taught quickly that he can, because he was killing me. And I could tell in the room, he was just having a real fun time doing it, and that comes across in his performance.”
Keanu was very intrigued by the story of the movie and the backstory of the characters. As a result, Duke will be a big player during the movie. And the movie will be better for it. Will Duke Caboom reach viral-meme-status? We will find out after the movie hits the cinemas which will be on June 21st, 2019.
