‘Lightyear’: Who Plays Sox the Cat?
Disney‘s new animated movie, Lightyear features a stellar cast of voice actors, including award-winning stars like Taika Waititi and Chris Evans. But for many, the robotic cat, Sox, stood out most. So who plays Sox the Cat in Lightyear and what else has he been in?
‘Lightyear’ tells a new Buzz Lightyear story
The first five movies of the Toy Story franchise chronicled the adventures of Andy’s toys, Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) and Woody (Tom Hanks). But Lightyear tells a new story chronicling the adventures of the Space Ranger the toy is modeled after.
In the new Disney-Pixar film, Buzz (Chris Evans) and his space crew are stranded on a planet they were meant to explore. While Buzz takes years trying to figure out a way to leave, time dilation occurs, and his crew grows old.
But throughout his mission, Buzz has his hilarious robotic cat Sox by his side. Initially, Buzz is uninterested in befriending the white and ginger feline. But Sox eventually wins him over.
So who plays Sox the Cat in ‘Lightyear’?
American actor, animator, artist, and director Peter Sohn plays Sox the Cat in Lightyear. Sohn helmed the 2015 Disney film, The Good Dinosaur. As an animator and artist, he’s worked on several popular projects including Finding Nemo, Up, The Incredibles, Brave, Toy Story 3, Ratatouille, Luca, and Wall-E.
Sohn has also voiced some of the most famous animated characters in film and TV. He played Remy’s older brother Emile in the Disney hit, Ratatouille. And he also portrayed Squishy in Monsters University, Forrest Woodbush in The Good Dinosaur, and Ciccio in Luca. Sohn’s other notable voice credits include Inside Out, Finding Dory, The Incredibles, Cars 3, Coco, Onward, Soul, and Turning Red.
Peter Sohn reveals how ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Star Trek’ characters inspired Sox
In a recent chat with Scifinow, Sohn talked about Lightyear and how Sox was simply a concept when he signed on to the film. “When Angus [McLane] first pitched this, we were all excited about the film, but we had no idea of the characters that he was going to build around it,” he recalled.
“So reading those first pages, it was like, ‘OK, so Buzz needs a robot to help him psychologically'”, Sohn continued. “That concept alone was really fascinating. Like what happened to Buzz that he needed something like that?”
Buzz and Sox’s dynamic made Sohn think of other popular sci-fi robots. He noted that some of the beloved Droids from Star Wars and Star Trek inspired his approach to the character.
“That start really brought me to the sci-fi shows and movies that I loved and the types of characters that I love from there – that [the director] was tapping into the logic systems of Spock or the practicality of a Data or the gadgets of an R2D2,” Sohn explained. “I don’t know if he was mixing those personally, but that’s what I was bringing into his mixing of it.”
Sohn didn’t get to see much of Sox during filming. So he was thrilled to see how the character turned out in the final cut.
“Ultimately, seeing the film a few months ago — the animators brought so much stuff to Sox that I had no idea,” the actor noted. “But it was so fun to see.”
