Sonic 2 director on creating a ‘fully realized, fully dimensional’ Knuckles

polygon.com:

Knuckles is a bit of a scene stealer in Sonic 2. When he faces off against a cocky Sonic (voiced by Benjamin Schwartz) the assured warrior only has one question in response to the hero’s goading: “Do I look like I need your power?”

The answer is no. Unlike Jim Carry’s obsessed Dr. Robotnik and Sonic’s arch nemesis, Knuckles isn’t at all interested in the blue blur’s special abilities. Knuckles then proceeds to smash Sonic into the ground with relative ease. The shoulder heavy echidna oozes confidence and the fact that he is voiced with the deep and rich voice of Idris Elba, doesn’t hurt all that much either.

But before we met him in the movie, there was Knuckles, the video game character. First introduced in the Sonic 3 video game as a villain, the Sonic 2 movie reimagines the meeting of Sonic and Knuckles and follows the story of the two as they grow from enemies to friends. Rather than being a throwaway character kept on hand for the occasional joke, Sonic 2 examines the backstory of Knuckles with surprising depth as we learn of his past and path to the Master Emerald. Director Jeff Fowler sat down with Polygon to talk more about the making of Knuckles, working with Elba, and on creating a “fully realized, fully dimensional” Knuckles in the movie.

[Ed. note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.]

So I have to ask: Did you intentionally make Knuckles hot in any way?

Well, I think Idris is just inherently uh, sexy as we’ve all uh, sort of seen online, the sexy Knuckles debate. It cracks me up. I love seeing people discuss it. It’s hilarious. It was not something I would ever expect. But yeah, Idris, I mean, is the sexiest man alive. So that makes Knuckles I guess, the sexiest echidna alive, you know,