Knuckles Star Adam Pally Talks Being “Believably Human” As Wade In The Sonic Universe

With all six episodes of the Sonic the Hedgehog spin-off Knuckles set to premiere tomorrow, April 26th exclusively on Paramount+, ComicBook recently had the opportunity to speak with Adam Pally, who plays one of the spin-off’s central characters Wade Whipple, about being a part of this growing franchise. With our review of the series pointing out Pally steals the show, we wanted to dive into Pally’s mind about the most challenging aspect behind portraying a “believably human” character in a world of anthropomorphic hedgehogs, echidnas, and more.

“Thank you for saying believably human. I’ve gotten that note a couple times to be more ‘believably human,’” Pally noted first before continuing. “I just like playing him. I like playing someone who’s willing to get their heart broken. Because if you’re willing to go through that, you have to look at everything with such a positive mindset, knowing that this time it may go my way, you know? I don’t think I live that way enough, and so it’s nice to go to work every day and put that suit on and deal with things in that manner.”

Wade was introduced in the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie, where he was the deputy sheriff of Green Hills. If Wade is already a highlight to the franchise for you, you can look forward to a lot more information about him in the series, you also get to meet multiple members of his family, and see Wade himself step into being a much more intentional hero as the apprentice of Knuckles.

On this character growth, Pally says “It’s always nice when a character learns that the thing that they felt they didn’t have was actually inside them all along, because I think that that’s pretty true to most people in real life. And it doesn’t have to mean an adventure with a powerful alien echidna, it can be something small, but if you’re open to finding that thing about yourself and working on it and changing it, then you can become a better version of yourself.”

With his role in the Sonic universe expanding, Pally notes, “It’s truly an actor’s dream to be given a small part and then have it require a little more, and then to be given your own thing. It’s like the most exciting thing is just all of the it just feels like hard work pays off in a way, you know? And if you do a good job and you’re nice to people, good things will happen.”

If you’re intending to jump in to experience the first Sonic the Hedgehog spin-off on Paramount+ with its premiere, what you can look forward to in Pally’s words is “Fun from the moment it starts. It’s hard not to smile at it, you know? Beginning to end fun.”

Eager for more on the Knuckles spin-off? You can watch ComicBook’s Quick Save podcast review of the series here, and let us know if you’re looking forward to the series on X!