NEED TO KNOW
Ice Spice is ready to take on more acting roles.
While speaking exclusively to Time Magazine for its new special SpongeBob issue (available for purchase now) about her role in The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants, the rapper, 25, revealed she’d love to star in other cartoon films.
“Hello Kitty! If that’s ever a thing, and Betty Boop! Duh,” Ice Spice, real name Isis Gaston, said.
As fans wait for Ice Spice to star as the beloved cartoon cat, they can see her in the new SpongeBob film.
Her Bikini Bottom character, who sports the rapper’s iconic ginger hair, marks Ice Spice’s debut as a voice actor, following her performance in Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest, which released this summer.
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When asked about her transition from regular acting to voice acting, Ice Spice said that voice acting is more “aligned” with her music career.
“Making music is like low-key voice acting,” she said. “I feel like the two are similar.”
The Grammy-nominated rapper wrote an original song for the movie titled, “Big Guy.” (Fun fact: one of Ice Spice’s earliest hits was “Bikini Bottom,” inspired by the show.)
“I was in the studio with Riot and Lil Yachty, and Riot started playing this beat and it sounded so SpongeBob,” she told Time Magazine. “Then we finished an entire song, went back in and chopped it up with some SpongeBob vocab.
She continued, “I would be lying to you if I said it wasn’t a little bit of a challenge, because we had to stick to the script, because it’s about a very specific character in a very specific movie and there are certain SpongeBob-related words we had to say.”
“It was a challenge, but it was a fun one,” she added.
Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Movies
Ice Spice also opened up about working on the film as a fan of the cartoon.
“[SpongeBob] is the funniest person ever,” Ice Spice told the outlet. “He’s so nostalgic for me, because I grew up watching him, and me and my friends bonded over SpongeBob jokes, memes, and references.”
Ice Spice revealed that when the offer to star in the movie came to her, she signed on, no questions asked.
“I don’t even think I asked for details,” she said. “Anything SpongeBob, I’m down.”
Search for SquarePants features the original cast of voices — Tom Kenny as SpongeBob, Bill Fagerbakke as Patrick Star, Clancy Brown as Mr. Krabs, Rodger Bumpass as Squidward and Carolyn Lawrence as Sandy Cheeks — along with Ice Spice, George Lopez, Arturo Castro, Sherry Cola and Regina Hall.
The movie, directed by Derek Drymon, follows SpongeBob and his best friend Patrick Star as they embark on an adventure with The Flying Dutchman (voiced by Mark Hamill).
“Desperate to be a big guy, SpongeBob sets out to prove his bravery to Mr. Krabs by following The Flying Dutchman – a mysterious swashbuckling ghost pirate – on a seafaring comedy-adventure that takes him to the deepest depths of the deep sea, where no Sponge has gone before,” reads an official synopsis for the film.
The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants is in theaters Dec. 19.
