Keanu Reeves was picked up out of dozens of others while the director and producers of Toy Story 4 were looking for the right voice for a new character, Duke Caboom. Chatting to HELLO! at the European premiere of the film, director Josh Cooley revealed that although it was a blind audition, Keanu's voice stuck out.
Keanu plays Duke Caboom
He explained: "We had the character design of Duke Caboom, but we had no idea who the voice would be. We have a casting department at work and whenever we listen to voices I don't want to see faces, I don't want to see names, because you don't get to see that on the screen. They were playing a bunch of Canadian actors and they played a line from a Keanu movie that I hadn't seen. Without seeing his face, his voice just stuck out and we were like, 'Is that Keanu?' and he agreed to come and meet with us. And he helped craft that performance and that character in such a major way."
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2019 has been a hectic year for the star, as he has also appeared in John Wick Chapter 3 and the Netflix rom-com Always Be My Maybe. Speaking about appearing in a film with Keanu, Tim Allen joked: "I just saw 'John Wick' and I go, 'Good Lord, I don't want to get this guy upset.' Keep him away from the knives!" Tom Hanks added: "I laughed my head off when they said, 'This is a new character, it's called Duke Caboom. He's Canada's No. 1 stunt man. I said, 'I'm in.'" He added: "I did not meet Keanu Reeves until we took a picture with the whole cast about a month ago. You don't work together on this. We hear about how great he is, they might show us, you know, a little clip of something that he did but you don't get to interact with the other cast members on Toy Story movies."
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