Sharpe voices AJ in the new animated film ‘In Waves,’ which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 14
NEED TO KNOW
- Will Sharpe voices teenage artist AJ in the animated film In Waves, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 14, ahead of its Dec. 11 release date on Netflix
- The White Lotus star praises animators for bringing the film’s love story and characters to life
- Sharpe, who enjoys drawing with his kids, jokes his art is far less refined than his character’s
Will Sharpe is bringing his talents to the world of voice acting.
The White Lotus star, 39, leads director Phuong Mai Nguyen’s animated film In Waves as teenage artist AJ, who falls for Kristen (Stephanie Hsu) as they navigate what life and love look like after Kristen falls ill.
The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 14, two days after Sharpe and Nguyen, visited the PEOPLE / Entertainment Weekly and Shutterstock studio on Sept. 12 to chat about the project.
Credit: Cindy Ord/Getty
Though Sharpe’s character is an exquisite artist, often making flip books of his surfing experiences in Los Angeles with Kristen and sketching her portraits, the actor says that in reality, his art is a little less refined.
“I mean, I can draw in my own way, but it looks like somebody going through psychosis,” he says, laughing. “If you like it, then it works, but it’s quite specific.”
Still, he enjoys the creative medium. He even says he draws with his two children, whom he shares with his partner, actress Sophia Di Martino. The couple have not publicly revealed their children’s names.
“They’re often drawing stuff around. I mean, I’m interested in it. I love graphic novels, illustrations. I like visual art. I just wish I could be more precise with my drawing. I can’t do photographic representations, it’s like an interpretation. And I do like surfing, but I can’t claim to be that good,” he says.
Sharpe’s time filming the animated movie, he says, echoed his experience on live-action sets.
“You’re still trying to feel your way through the scenes and playing around with it,” says Sharpe. He credits the movie’s animators, however, for helping to bring the love story between his character and Hsu’s to life.
“In animation, some people say that the animators are sort of the actors because the nuances of facial expressions and the physicality — all of that is done through the drawing. And then for me and Stephanie, we sort of come in and embellish that,” he says.
Credit: Netflix
Nguyen echoes Sharpe’s sentiment.
“I think these moments that you fall in love for someone, it’s a lot of mixing emotions and it’s kind of part of the challenge for me [in] making this film: that it could look real even though it’s animation.”
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In Waves begins streaming on Netflix on Dec. 11.
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