ComingSoon spoke with Sneaks star Rico Rodriguez about the new animated movie featuring Anthony Mackie and Martin Lawrence. Rodriguez spoke about his love of basketball and shoes, his character Ice, and more. Directed by Rob Edwards and Chris Jenkins, the film is out in theaters nationwide starting today.
“Sneaks follows the adventures of Ty, a misguided designer sneaker who doesn’t know life outside the comforts of his velvet-lined shoe box. After his sister is stolen by a shady collector, Ty must venture into NYC to find and rescue her. In his adventure, Ty meets a rag-tag group of footwear friends from all walks of life who help him find the courage to step outside of his shoe box and find his ‘sole-mate,’” says the synopsis.
Tyler Treese: You have a really fun role in this film. You play Ice, you’re a bit of a trash talker in the film. It has an asterisk, but you can say you played two-on-two basketball with Anthony Mackie and Martin Lawrence now. It has to be pretty cool. I know you’re a basketball fan, so what did you like most about your scene?
Rico Rodriguez: What I loved is it kind of just mimics what I would do on a regular court. I mean, granted, Ice is a much better trash talker, and he’s not afraid to trash talk, which I’m not afraid to either. I just like to do it when I’m gonna win, you know what I mean? Like, I’ll talk, but I usually let other people trash talk me so that once I win, I can trash talk them. That’s the perfect way of like, “Well, then win then.” That was a lot of fun, and to be able to play a two-on-two basketball game with Anthony Mackie and Martin Lawrence, I mean, not a lot of people get to say that, so that was a lot of fun.
How do you think it would go in real life? Do you think you could guard Anthony Mackie?
I mean, I know he is Captain America, but this jump shot is pure. I think it would be a nice heated contest. But I’m confident in myself that I could pull out a win. I love that. We gotta get what Anthony has to say first, of course.
This movie has a really neat idea of shoes having their own personalities and coming to life when you’re not looking. It’s kind of like Toy Story. I feel like the villain should have been a pair of black Air Force Ones, though, you know?
Oh, yeah.
You just can’t trust them.
But sometimes the collectors, those guys can get pretty scary sometimes with the way that they, are. Because sometimes you just want to enjoy shoes for what they are, and others they want to profit and use it and lift it up into a way that’s kind of unattainable for some people who just want to enjoy ’em. You know what I mean? So there’s a good little give and take here and there.
What did you like most about this core concept of the shoes all having personalities? It’s really fun.
I think it’s cool because first off, it’s kind of everything that I like in one movie. So I love sneaker culture and hip-hop culture. The soundtrack alone from Mustard, it’s crazy. With it being sports, I just love it. If I wasn’t in the movie, I would go see it myself because I would take all my nieces and nephews and we’d go see it because that’s something fun that I would love to do and love to watch. I think to be able to have talking sneakers, I mean, it’s cool.
It’s such a cool concept because sneakers don’t talk, and that would be cool to see what they would sound like, you know? What are you shoes talking about when you’re not around? Or when you come to the court, you have your basketball shoes, and you have the shoes that you take off. You put ’em under, you put ’em in the bag, and so it’s cool to see while you’re balling over there, your other shoes are balling as well. That’s so cool. I love that.
You mentioned being a sneakerhead. I saw an interview a few years ago, you shouted out the Jordan 12s. What’s your dream pair of sneakers?
Dream pair of sneakers would probably be the Nike Back to the Future shoes, the ones that Marty wore because Back to the Future is my favorite movie. I don’t know if I would wear them… I would wear them, like, but I would put all types of protective material on it, like the see-through sole protectors. So, the bottoms wouldn’t get messed up. I would go the whole nine yards to make sure they were good when I went out with them.
I loved you on Modern Family. Now that you’re a few years removed, what do you miss the most about that cast? It was such a dream cast.
That show and that time in my life was so special, and I look back on it fondly. My family and I just recently celebrated 20 years of living here in L.A. and being in the industry. So I’ve been doing a lot of reminiscing lately. Just that time on the show, it was a blast. It was such a blessing, and everyone had such a great time. So, whenever I get to see any of them, I recently went out to lunch with one of our first ADs and our prop guys, just because that’s how close we were as a show in general. Not just the cast, but the crew itself. It just felt like family reconnected after a family reunion. I miss those guys every day. I love the show. I miss them. It’s awesome to say that I was a part of something really special.
Thanks to Rico Rodriguez for taking the time to talk about Sneaks.
