INTERVIEW: Jay Baruchel On Lasting Impact Of Hiccup And “Dragon” – Animation Scoop

INTERVIEW: Jay Baruchel On Lasting Impact Of Hiccup And “Dragon”

Jay Baruchel won an Annie Award in 2011 for his voice performance as Hiccup in DreamWorks’ beloved How to Train Your Dragon. He also won a Daytime Emmy in 2019 for voicing the character on the Dragons: Race to the Edge TV series. It’s been three and a half years since Baruchel last played Hiccup, on NBC’s How to Train Your Dragon: Homecoming holiday special.

I had the chance to interview Baruchel for his new live-action drama BlackBerry, which IFC Films is releasing in theaters this Friday May 12th. Baruchel plays Mike Lazaridis, the co-founder of BlackBerry, in a thrilling saga that chronicles the rise and fall of the cell phone giant. At the end of our conversation, I asked Baruchel what Hiccup and Dragon have meant to his life and career. Here’s what he told me, in this Animation Scoop Exclusive:

“Oh my God, man. How much time do you have? Three movies, eight seasons of a TV show and some specials. You know, it was just an audition. I walked into a f—ing audition and fell a– backwards into my Star Wars. Rare is the day you go into an audition being like, ‘You know what? I bet you I book this, and I bet you it ends-up meaning everything to a generation of kids across the world.’ That doesn’t f—ing happen ever!

I have nothing but love for Hiccup and nothing but respect and admiration for all the people for whom he’s a hero. We’re very lucky. The Dragon franchise… I hate using words like ‘franchise’ when I’m talking about something as special as a movie meaning something to people but… the series, the epic, the saga of How to Train Your Dragon is a lot of people’s favorite thing. And I remember… The thing you love when you’re a kid, you will never love anything in your adult life as intensely. And that will drive you to a thing.

Jay Baruchel

Astronauts all the time say, ‘It was ’cause I loved Star Trek when I was a kid.’ There’s going to be animators — there already are — enough time has passed. People working in animation and storytelling… probably people working in biology… all of whom got that spark, that bug, initially off of something of a movie that I was lucky enough to do a voice for. So yeah, really special.”

Jackson Murphy
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