Krysten Ritter Was Worried She’d ‘Cry’ Working With Jim Carrey on Sonic 3

Krysten Ritter was nearly brought to tears on the set of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 by none other than her costar Jim Carrey.

“The first day that we worked together, I think I told people this, but I was worried that I would cry,” Ritter, 43, exclusively told Us Weekly while chatting about the upcoming film, which hits theaters on Friday, December 20. “When you meet somebody who you’ve watched your whole life — and I loved him so much.”

Ritter has been a longtime fan of Carrey’s, telling Us that she did “impressions of him very early in my career to get my acting manager.” So when she got the chance to work with him in Sonic 3, the actress said she was “very worried that I was going to cry.”

She explained: “I was telling everybody just to let the charge out a little bit, and thank God I didn’t in front of him. I didn’t cry to his face, but I kept it together. I was very cool, but I did a lot of acting.”

Carrey returns as Dr. Robotnik for the third Sonic installment. Rather than face off against the titular hero (voiced by Ben Schwartz) and his pals Knuckles (voiced by Idris Elba) and Tails (voiced by Colleen O’Shaughnessey), Sonic 3 will see Dr. Robotnik team up with the trio to take down the villainous Shadow the Hedgehog (voiced by Keanu Reeves).

Just like his on-screen character, Ritter — who joins the franchise as Director Rockwell — told Us Carrey was like a “mad scientist” on set. “He’s a comedic scientist. And I think just watching how he would make subtle changes, big changes — he would do the scripted version and then he would have pages and pages of alts to try, stuff that he had written the night before, or an idea that came to him,” she shared. “And he would just make these subtle little changes, and the comedy would land differently. It was so cool to watch.”

Ritter’s favorite credits of Carrey’s include In Living Color, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Liar Liar, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Dumb and Dumber. “He’s so funny. He’s created a language the same way, like, Tim Burton,” she gushed. “You can look at one image like, ‘Oh, that’s so Tim Burton.’ You can look at the music of Jim Carrey’s comedy and be like, ‘Oh, it’s so Jim Carrey.’ He’s just doing his own thing. He’s just one in a billion.”

Not only was Ritter excited to work alongside Carrey on Sonic 3, but the film will mark the first project of hers that her 5-year-old son, Bruce, will get to watch. (She shares her son with longtime partner Adam Granduciel.)

“I have some Jessica Jones little action figures, so he knows about [the TV show] Jessica Jones, but he could not see any of that ever,” she quipped. “So, this will be the first thing that he’s able to see of my work, which is really exciting.”

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 hits theaters on Friday, December 20.

With reporting by Tufayel Ahmed.