NEED TO KNOW
Tony Hale doesn’t really know what happens in next year’s Toy Story 5, but he also didn’t know he was even in Toy Story 4 despite reading for the part.
“It wasn’t until I heard my voice on the Toy Story 4 trailer that I actually thought I was still in it. It wasn’t until then,” he confesses to PEOPLE.
“The whole time I was like, ‘They’re going to cut me. They’re going to replace me with some huge star,'” he adds.
Disney/Pixar
Not only did the Veep star make the final cut of the 2019 film, but his character, Forky, a talking spork, played a pivotal role in the Oscar-winning film. Hale, 54, himself has come to love the fork-spoon he portrays.
“When you were playing in a world of Forky from Toy Story, it means just the power of simplicity. That’s why children’s books are so popular. I mean, sometimes adults gravitate to children’s books because of the simplicity,” he offers.
“What I loved is [Forky] was the first toy that was made by a kid,” he continues. “So talk about simplicity. I mean, it was like a spork and some pipe cleaner arms, some popsicle feet.”
Forky, who has a penchant for trash cans and differently shaped eyes with a blue wax mouth, is curious, simple and profound, despite having no real deep thoughts, Hale believes.
“He just had this kind of wide-eyed simplicity and newness to him that was just so beautiful,” the Sketch actor adds.
While the two-time Emmy winner has recorded his Toy Story 5 scenes for Forky, he has no spoilers to offer, other than to say the theme surrounds toys vs. technology.
“They give you pieces of the script, and so I saw glimpses, but the glimpses I saw are pretty cool,” he says. “I don’t want to lose the surprise. I want to be completely surprised with Toy Story 5.”
Toy Story 5 is slated for release on June 19, 2026.
