‘Scott Pilgrim Takes Off’: Mary Elizabeth Winstead & Ellen Wong on Going Anime for Netflix Series (VIDEO)
Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) goes on quite a journey to defeat Ramona Flowers’ (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) exes in the Scott Pilgrim franchise, which began as graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley, was brought to the big screen by Edgar Wright in 2010 with Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, and most recently in Netflix‘s anime series Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.
The show brought to life the characters who inhabited the pages of O’Malley’s books with help from the film’s cast as Cera, Winstead, and many more reprised their live-action roles as voice actors this time around. For those less familiar with the IP, Scott is a twentysomething Canadian band member who finds himself obsessed with Ramona Flowers, a mysterious American with an ever-changing, brightly-hued hairdo.
Linked to the younger Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), his draw to Ramona outweighs all else, even when he learns she has a league of evil exes determined to deliver his demise.
(Credit: Netflix)
TV Insider caught up with the film and voice stars Winstead and Wong following Scott Pilgrim Takes Off‘s premiere as they open up about the jump from real life to anime. For Wong, it was her first experience getting into the voice-over booth. “I got to act differently with my voice,” Wong says, noting how different of an experience that was.
Having been more than 10 years since playing the character was another challenge as well. “She’s still 17, so I really had to find her,” Wong recalls of getting back into character. “I had to… lighten up my voice a little bit and find that girl who’s turning into a woman, and that was really uncomfortable. But then also really interesting and also fulfilling and amazing,” she gushes.
Winstead had the challenge of revisiting her character at a young age but also had the joy of approaching her with some more wisdom as the anime took Ramona into the future. “It was nice to bring more of the energy of who I am now at 39 to Ramona and have all that life experience behind her,” the actress shares. “And what’s so great about the show is that BenDavid [Grabinski] and Bryan did that as well. They sort of are revisiting this story from when we were all in our twenties and looking at it through the lens of being in your late thirties.”
The experience of seeing young Ramona and Scott alongside older versions of the characters was something Winstead calls “very meta and all very emotional and incredibly authentic to their experience and our collective experience. And I think that that’s part of why people have embraced it so much because that audience has grown as well.”
See what else the stars are sharing about their experience of revisiting Ramona and Knives for the anime series in the full video above, and catch Scott Pilgrim Takes Off anytime on Netflix.
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, Streaming now, Netflix
