‘Space Jam: A New Legacy’ Star Eric Bauza Opens up About Working With ‘Passionate’ LeBron James (Exclusive)

Space Jam: A New Legacy hits theatres and HBO Max on Friday, and Eric Bauza plays multiple roles in the film, voicing the characters of Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn and Marvin the Martian. During an interview with PopCulture.com, Bauza reveals that not only did he work in the early stages of production with LeBron James, but had one incredibly amazing experience with the basketball legend.

“Intimidating at first, but the handshake was like this,” Bauza said to PopCulture while holding one of his hands very close to the camera while the other one was back. “Like this is my hand in his. I took a picture with him, and it looked like I was standing in a pothole. He’s larger than life in person and on the big screen, but genuinely a nice guy, couldn’t have met a more passionate guy about this film. Everything he carries on the court, he takes with him to work on the set and in the booth for sure.”

Bauza also revealed: “We were recording about almost two years ago. So I was in the booth at least four or five times with LeBron doing a lot of the scenes where he plays himself as an animated character in the movie. And at that point again, I was only providing temporary voice dialogue, but I was performing it like these were the actual takes to give LeBron something really final to act off of. So he had a good sounding board.”

Bauza is never seen in Space Jam: A New Legacy but plays an important role in the film since he voices many of the main characters. In fact, Bauza, 41, was the first voiceover artist to be hired for the film. But at that time, Bauza was brought on to do temporary dialogue and was not sure he would be part of the official cast.

“It’s every voiceover artists’ reality now that sometimes the producers may want to go through casting a celebrity or a bigger name to throw into the picture,” Bauza stated. “And there’s so many performances from big celebrities, the most notable one, and I think the one that caused the biggest wave was Robin Williams as the Genie. So when you’re providing temporary voice dialogue for a film, you’re kind of like, will I be in it? Will I not? But they stuck with us. And I couldn’t happier for that outcome, not for me, but for the integrity of the characters and how we remembered them.”