John Leguizamo discussed his career in a new interview with NPR and confirmed that a new ‘Ice Age’ film is on the horizon. “We’re about to do ‘Ice Age 6,’” the actor said but didn’t share any details about the upcoming production.
The main voice cast’s return seems likely for the sixth film, though nothing is official yet. Leguizamo voiced Sid the sloth in the 2002 original and its four sequels opposite Ray Romano as Manny, Denis Leary as Diego, and Chris Wedge as Scrat.
The actor recalled how he came up with Sid’s voice during the recent chat. “I did, like, 50 voices for the director, Chris Wedge, and he wouldn’t – he said, they’re – I just want you to do your voice,” he shared.
“‘I go… I don’t want to do my voice. I want to do a voice. I’m an actor.’ So, I did a Southern voice for the sloth ’cause he’s slow. Then I went a little more ghetto one. And he goes, ‘Nah.’ Then I got Discovery Channel footage, and I saw that sloths stored food in their cheek pouches, and they – it would ferment, and they’d get drunk.”
“So, I started eating a sandwich and I put it in my cheek pouches, and I walked around the house waiting for it to ferment, and it didn’t,” Leguizamo continued. “But what happened was then I got slushy – slushy in my mouth. And I called the director [and said in the voice of Sid the sloth] ‘Chris, guess who this is?’ And he was like, ‘I have no idea.’ ‘Sid the sloth!’ And that’s how [I] did the voice.”
The first ‘Ice Age’ film followed Manny, Sid, and Diego on a quest to return a human baby to his father on the brink of an ice age. Its success brought along ‘Ice Age: The Meltdown’ in 2006, ‘Dawn of the Dinosaurs’ in 2009, ‘Continental Drift’ in 2012, and ‘Collision Course’ in 2016.
A standalone spinoff, ‘The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild,’ premiered on Disney+ in January 2022.
