Rambling Reporter

JOHN LASSETER HITS THE PAVEMENT: Until recently, Pixar head John Lasseter had done voice work for only one of his films, 1998’s A Bug’s Life. “But I got zapped in a bug zapper pretty quickly,” he tells THR. He’ll soon sound off onscreen again as an all-American pickup truck named John Lassetire when his Cars 2, starring Owen Wilson, Michael Caine and Eddie Izzard, hits June 24. “Denise Ream, my producer, got legal clearance on the name, so I felt like I had to do it,” says Lasseter, who even called in a co-director for his bit part. “I needed objectivity — for my three lines!” And while Disney’s gearing up Cars 2 to drive big box office, Lasseter — who’s got hits, Oscars and every accolade a filmmaker could get — isn’t so secure: “What if Cars 2 is the first Pixar movie to bomb? And what if it’s because of my performance?”