While in Los Angeles for the Alice Through the Looking Glass premiere event, I had the opportunity to sit down with Raymond Persi, the voice of Flash from the hit movie, Zootopia.  It was amazing to hear the process of voice recording and how the concept of Flash was developed.  Plus, I even had my own chance to sit down and interview Flash one-on-one. Check……….it……….out……..

So admit it, your favorite character from Zootopia was Flash, the Sloth from the DMV:

Flash, Flash, Hundred Yard Dash……

As frustrating with as slow as Flash was on-screen, meeting him in “real-life”, ok the voice of Flash, Raymond Persi, was the complete opposite.  A few weeks ago, in celebration for the release of Zootopia to Blu-ray, we met with the directors, producers and animators at Disney Toon Studios. I was very excited to hear how the character of Flash was developed and hear more behind-the-scenes scoop on Zootopia.  Plus, we had a chance to introduce ourselves to Flash himself…..on camera…..let me tell you, as fast talking as I am, Flash certainly slowed me down……

Raymond Persi, Voice of Flash

Raymond Persi is a Disney animator, director, and story artist who has done work on Frozen, Wreck-It Ralph and Zootopia.  He is also well-known for directing several The Simpsons episodes.  Most recently, his work developing & voicing the character of Flash Slothmore of Zootopia have kept him busy. We had the chance to sit down with him and hear how that all came about.

On Becoming a Voice Artist….

When we’re making our films, we’ll do like rough versions of them first, and sometimes we don’t know who’s going to be cast yet or we don’t even know if that character will stay in past one screening of the film. So they bring a lot of the different people in the studio to do scratch voices. It’s called just a temporary voice, just to tell the story. And every now and then, we keep some of those voices in. So for me, the first one I got to do was Gene, the little jerk from Wreck It Ralph. And then the Zombie.

And then later on Get A Horse – I got to be another little jerk, the little jerky horn. And then the cool thing was I got to some of the little voices for Horse – the Horse Caller. And what was neat about that was, they used archival audio of Walt Disney as Mickey Mouse for the short. So I get to laugh with Walt Disney, which is really cool. And then on Frozen, I got a guy who, he just had one line, but his wife says, ‘Come on. Hurry up, Persi.’ So that was cool because that’s my name.

Including his 2 Boston Terriers in the Movies…..

I did not do any voices on Feast, but I have two Boston Terriers, that got to do voices on it. So we brought them in and we recorded them like eating things and we squeezed them to make them grunt and snort. They’re both snorty dogs so it worked out well.

How Did He Become Flash in Zootopia?

For Zootopia,  Rich Moore along with the Head of Story, Jim Reardon, brought me in to do scratch for Flash. And normally you think, oh, you’re going to do the voice of a sloth, you think okay, I’ll talk slowly. But that’s not what they wanted. They said no, no, he talks normal. He just has spaces in between the words. So we recorded for like half an hour or so, and they coached me. They showed me what they wanted. We read the lines, and then the scene didn’t change too much because after that because that’s what they used in the film.  I think my voice just sounded stupid enough that it worked.

Did they have an actor in mind for that part before they had you read for it?

I don’t think so. I think it was just a character they wanted to try out. It was an idea for a scene.  When Rich and Jim came on to the project, they were just trying to think of funny locations and animals, like animals in a nudist colony, that’s funny. Sloths running the DMV, that’s funny. A guy who’s like a mafia king pin, but he’s a tiny little shrew. So I think they hadn’t thought about it yet, and then I just worked for them.

photo credit: Jana Seitzer/MerlotMommy.com

So when you recorded, did you change your voice at all, or is that something that they adapted or did you just speak how you normally speak?

Well, you force it a little bit. That’s one of the interesting things about voice acting is you don’t have your hands, you don’t have your face, you don’t have your body to act with. So it all has to come out of your voice. You have to focus all the characterization in the voice to make it work.  So that’s a fun challenge. 

That Time I Met Flash from Zootopia

After our Q & A time, we were invited to meet with the full-sized Flash Puppet for a quick, on-camera introduction.  I have to say, I was pretty excited to meet Flash, even if it was just the puppet – Raymond is voicing him, but once those eyes open and you hear his voice, you will see.  It’s like going straight to Zootopia……

So frustrating……

Zootopia Blu Ray is Available Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Other Articles from the Alice Through the Looking Glass & Zootopia Blu-ray Event you may enjoy:

My Alice Through the Looking Glass Red Carpet Premiere Experience
Get to Know Alice’s Mia Wasikowski
5 Reasons Why Alice Through the Looking Glass is Better than Alice in Wonderland
Exclusive Interview with Suzanne Todd, Producer of Alice Through the Looking Glass
Zootopia’s Clark Spencer, Rich Moore, & Byron Howard
9 Things You Didn’t Know About Zootopia
Exclusive Interview with James Bobin, Director of Alice Through the Looking Glass

Disclaimer: Disney sent me to Los Angeles on an all-expenses paid press trip, in exchange for my coverage of the in-home Zootopia movie release. All opinions are my own.