Knuckles is about to hit Paramount+. In a new behind-the-scenes featurette from the Sonic spinoff series,cast members Adam Pally, Scott Mescudi, Ellie Taylor, Edi Patterson, and Cary Elwes share their experience working with Knuckles — last of the echidnas, most dangerous warrior in the galaxy, and, as it turns out, method actor. The six-episode event series, which is focused on the Idris Elba-voiced breakout star of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 as he trains his human apprentice, Pally’s Green Hills sheriff’s deputy Wade Whipple, premieres April 26.
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“I love working with Knuckles. He’s the most professional actor I’ve ever met,” Pally says in the featurette below. “He knows his lines, and your lines, and your motivation, and the phone number for your high school drama teacher in case he wants to blame someone.”
The spike-knuckled echidna is “very method,” adds Elwes, but “as normal as any other all-red alien-animal hybrid warrior. Except he has no sense of humor, at all.” As humorless as he may be, Knuckles packs a punch.
“Doing the fight scenes with him is interesting,” says Taylor over action-packed footage of the spike-knuckled warrior duking it out with armored Agent Willoughby and Mescudi’s souped-up Agent Mason in a bowling alley brawl. “He takes things a little bit too far. I mean, he launched my stunt double right across the room with just a little [jab].”
Set between the films Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (out Dec. 20), the live-action series follows Knuckles on a hilarious andaction-packed journey of self-discovery as he agrees to train Wade ashis protégé and teach him the ways of the Echidna warrior.
The cast includes special guest stars Ben Schwartz as Sonic, Tika Sumpter as Maddie, and Colleen O’Shaughnessey as Tails, all reprising their roles from the Sonic movies, and guest stars Stockard Channing (The West Wing), Julian Barratt (Mindhorn), Rory McCann (Game of Thrones), Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future), Paul Scheer (Black Monday), and Rob Huebel (Childrens Hospital).
Jeff Fowler, the filmmaker behind the hit Sonic movies, directed the pilot episode expanding the Cinematic World of Sonic the Hedgehog from Paramount Pictures. Executive producers Neal H. Moritz, Toby Ascher, John Whittington and Toru Nakahara are joined by Elba, with episodes directed by Ged Wright (VFX supervisor, Sonic 2), Brandon Trost (An American Pickle), Carol Banker (Reacher), and Jorma Taccone (Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping).
All six episodes of Knuckles are streaming April 26 exclusively on Paramount+. Sign up for a free Paramount+ trial here.
