Along with Pete Davidson’s new series Bubkis having recently premiered to Peacock subscribers, the Saturday Night Live alum can also now be briefly heard in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which is among the latest of the 2023 new movie releases to be playing in theaters. But that was just a cameo, whereas looking ahead to next month, among the things we know about Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is that he’s voicing Mirage, one of Optimus Prime’s Autobot allies. For those of you wondering what we can expect from this particular character, director Steven Caple Jr. summarized it nicely: picture The Mask meets Bugs Bunny.
In fact, this colorful description came straight from Pete Davidson when he was figuring out how to play the role, as Caple recalled to EW. The filmmaker specifically noted that the “fast-talking” Mirage is “someone you can’t hold down,” akin to Jim Carrey’s Stanley Ipkiss in The Mask once he puts on the title mask, whereas regarding the similarity with Looney Tunes mainstay Bugs Bunny, Caple said that Mirage is “a good character, but sometimes he toes the line.” Caple also described Mirage as “an outcast and a rebel,” as well as provided the following reason for why Davidson was such a good fit for the character:
Mirage just goes with the flow. He's a live-in-the-moment type of guy. As much as everyone's talking about the past or the future, he's living in the now. And honestly, it's weird, I feel like that's Pete Davidson.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts takes place in 1994, seven years after the events of Bumblebee, which is the same amount of time that he and his fellow Autobots have been secretly living on Earth. Although Optimus Prime starts off the movie preparing his team to go back to Cybertron, those plans are sidelined once the Maximals, led by Ron Perlman’s Optimus Primal, enter the picture, which works out for Mirage. This robot in disguise, who can turn into a silver-blue Porsche 911, has been enjoying his time on Earth and absorbing the pop culture of the period.
As a result, we’ll be hearing Mirage drop a lot of ‘90s references throughout Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. This includes him giving his own read on Jim Carrey’s “I like it a lot” line from Dumb and Dumber, and Steven Caple Jr. added:
He did that throughout the entire film and found ways to bring in a little bit of Adam Sandler, while all under the umbrella of Pete Davidson.
Caple also mentioned that while he initially wasn’t sure about if Pete Davidson would be up for providing his voice in the new Transformers movie, the actor didn’t hesitate accepting the offer, saying the fact that him in a Transformers movie “might not even mix” was the very reason why it was “a good idea.” Davidson’s fellow voice actors here include Peter Dinklage as Terrorcon leader Scourge, Michelle Yeah as Airazor and Liza Koshy as Arcee, among others, while on the live-action front, Anthony Ramos’ Noah Diaz and Dominique Fishback’s Elena Wallace are leading the charge. Take a look at the Rise of the Beasts trailer for a better idea of what the blockbuster has to offer.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts opens in theaters on June 9. Break out your Paramount+ subscription if you’d like to stream Bumblebee ahead of time, or take a look at how we’ve ranked the Transformers movies that have been released so far.
