The 6th installment in the popular ICE AGE franchise arrives on Disney+ today, and it brings with it the return of Simon Pegg’s fan-favorite Buck Wild, but we also get a brand-new fun female character, Zee.
Buck (voiced by Simon Pegg) and Zee (voiced by Justina Machado) in THE ICE AGE ADVENTURES OF BUCK WILD, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Disney Enterprises, Inc. © 2022 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Meet Zee – Justina Machado Joins the Ice Age in the Lost World
THE ICE AGE ADVENTURES OF BUCK WILD’s newest Lost World resident is Zee, is a zorilla voiced by Justina Machado
Justina Machado is known for her roles in shows such as “With Love,” “One Day at a Time,” “Six Feet Under,” “Elena of Avalor,” “Dragons: The Nine Realms,” “Superstore,” “Jane The Virgin,” and many others.
Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images – © 2020 Getty Images – Image courtesy gettyimages.com
In an interview at the press day for THE ICE AGE ADVENTURES OF BUCK WILD, Machado shared she was excited to be joining the ICE AGE universe.
“It was a lot of fun voicing somebody so strong, a social warrior, somebody who’s so rational and has it so together. That was a lot of fun,” Machado said.
In THE ICE AGE ADVENTURES OF BUCK WILD, opossum brothers Crash and Eddie break away from the herd and stumble back into the Lost World. There, they reunite with Buck and devise a plan to stop the dinosaurs from taking over. That’s where we meet Zee, an old friend of Buck’s, who joins the trio on their mission.
Machado was excited to be a part of a franchise that she’d been a fan of forever.
“I was so excited to be a part of this franchise, so they could have given me anything and I would’ve done it,” Machado said. “My initial reaction was, ‘Yes. Yes. I’ll do it.’ She’s just a lot of fun and it was so much fun going into the studio and working on her. It was just pure fun and she’s very funny and, as you can see, all the characters that she’s surrounded by are so great. I mean, one is funnier than the other, so it just was great fun to be a part of this.”
Crash (voiced by Vincent Tong), Eddie (voiced by Aaron Harris), Zee (voiced by Justina Machado), and Buck (voiced by Simon Pegg) in THE ICE AGE ADVENTURES OF BUCK WILD, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Disney Enterprises, Inc. © 2022 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Zee gets it done and is a bada$$ character. Machado shared a bit about developing Zee’s character and what she meant to her. Machado worked with director John C. Donkin and executive producer Lori Forte to develop the whole character together.
“It’s so hard to play somebody in control and bada$$. Those are my favorite characters to play, and they gave me the liberty to do that. And we had to figure it out because since I’m a new character, we certainly were trying to figure out who she was, what she sounded like,” Machado said.
“Because you just have your voice to work with. You can’t use me. I’m very animated, but you don’t see that. You’re just going to hear the voice. So it was just pure fun because the theme is love and family and chosen family and courage and all of those things.”
Machado shared how because she booked this job at the beginning of the pandemic, it was a wonderful escape to go into a studio and just play a great character. She looked forward to every session.
A scene still from ICE AGE: THE ADVENTURES OF BUCK WILD, exclusively on Disney+. © 2022 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
About THE ICE AGE ADVENTURES OF BUCK WILD
THE ICE AGE ADVENTURES OF BUCK WILD continues the escapades of the possum brothers Crash and Eddie who set out to find a place of their own. Together with the one-eyed weasel, Buck Wild, they face the dinosaurs who inhabit the Lost World.
The all-new animated adventure THE ICE AGE ADVENTURES OF BUCK WILD continues the hilarious escapades of the beloved sub-zero heroes from the wildly successful global ICE AGE franchise as they create more prehistoric pandemonium. The thrill-seeking possum brothers, Crash and Eddie, have grown restless in Snow Valley. They need plenty of wide-open space to practice their extreme stunts and are eager for a bit of independence. Their older sister, the woolly mammoth Ellie, is over-protective and worries too much. Still, Eddie and Crash are like sons to Ellie and Manny (her woolly mammoth husband), whom they met following a devastating flood, and they have bonded to become a make-shift family.
Rating: PG
Runtime: 82 mins
Director: John C Donkin
Screenplay: Jim Hecht, Will Schifrin, Ray DeLaurentis
Story by: Jim Hecht
Executive Producer: Lori Forte
Music: Batu Sener
Cast: Utkarsh Ambudkar, Simon Pegg, Vincent Tong, Sean Kenin Elias-Reyes, Jake Green, Aaron Harris, Dominique Jennings, Justina Machado, Skyler Stone
THE ICE AGE ADVENTURES OF BUCK WILD is streaming exclusively on Disney+ January 28th.
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