Tim Allen says the final kiss between Buzz Lightyear and Jessie in Toy Story 5 left him feeling “creepy,” explaining that his instincts as a father and his own approach to playing Buzz collide when romance comes on screen. The actor, 73, says he still doesn’t
In the final moments of Toy Story 5, Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) tries to confess his feelings to Jessie (Joan Cusack). He fumbles. Jessie cuts in with a kiss.
Allen, 73, didn’t hide his surprise. “It was creepy!” he told Us Weekly in a conversation about the smooch between the characters.
The reaction, he said, isn’t just about the scene itself. When Allen records Toy Story. he approaches Buzz as an extension of his own inner kid—so the moment reads differently when romance takes center stage. “When I’m doing [Toy Story], I’m literally an 8-year-old kid,” Allen said. “That’s what the personality I feel is inside Buzz, is my 11-year-old. So it’s like, ‘Oh God, oh no, I’m doing that?!’”.
His discomfort also mirrors what he described as a specific kind of awkwardness at home when his family is in the room. Allen compared his reaction to “watching a romance scene in the same room as his daughters,” recalling that every time there’s a kissing scene, people tend to go quiet.
“Every time there’s a kissing scene. everybody gets really quiet in the room. ” Allen said. adding that it felt especially pronounced when his daughter Elizabeth was younger. Allen is a father to two daughters: Kate. 36. whom he shares with ex-wife Laura Deibel. and Elizabeth. 17. whom he shares with wife Jane Hajduk. Allen said he has been married to Hajduk since 2006.
He traced that same unease back to the first time he read the Buzz-and-Jessie moment. “And that is exactly how I responded [to Buzz kissing Jessie]. I remember when I first read it. I said. ‘Are you going to show this?’ It’s like Woody’s bald spot. You kind of move them out of the animated thing, and it gets into some larger dramatic questions. Can they get married?. And let’s move on from there.”.
Those questions don’t linger as a dead end in the movie. Buzz and Jessie do end up tying the knot—“sort of. ” Allen said—when their owner. Bonnie. holds a pretend wedding for the toys so they can “say ‘I do.’” After stepping back. Allen said the emotional variety around the romance is what makes the scenes work.
“I loved [it] because it affects everybody in the room,” he explained. “You know, adults, and then kids go, ‘Eew!’ You got that potpourri of responses.”
He’s not new to talking directly about his characters, either. After the release of Toy Story 4, Allen previously joked to Pixar that Buzz should be more relevant to the story. He said it startled him when he later saw the storyboards and realized the writers took his request seriously. “I was just kidding around, but it was very startling when I saw the storyboards,” Allen shared. “I said, ‘OK, so you took it seriously, that’s interesting!’ That was funny.”.
Allen’s candor about romantic storylines extends beyond animated space. On the hit sitcom Shifting Gears, he plays Matt, a widow who eventually enters the dating scene. Allen said that while he originally wanted “a car show about a widower to deal with grief. ” the showrunner. Michelle Nader. and the production team emphasized the romance. He also praised Kat Dennings, who plays his daughter.
Matt’s relationship with Eve (played by Jenna Elfman) grows after the two start as enemies. with sparring matches turning into romantic sparks. Allen said Elfman’s presence helped broaden the show. “She’s so fun to be around and it’s brought out a whole different part of that show and brought a different audience to that show. ” he admitted. He framed it as a shift that matched the show’s mix of car culture and everyday life. “I’m really out there for the car guys and I make sure the car stuff is fun and exciting. Then the office is cool and now you’ve got romance for the people that want that.”.
Allen said the chemistry didn’t feel forced. “Because it turns out the flirting and the actual activity between these two characters is working and I said, ‘All right, I’ll go there.’ [Jenna is] really good at this and the romance is kind of generated quite by accident.”
Even with that appreciation, he said he worried about how their age difference would land on screen. Allen, who is 19 years Elfman’s senior, described feeling close to a line where the audience might perceive the relationship differently.
“It gets creepy for me at a certain age [and] we’re right at that border,” he explained. “If Jenna didn’t look so damn nice than our age gap is not that much. I just let my hair go natural and she just looks — especially on camera — quite young.”
He added, with a laugh, that his own appearance shifts depending on lighting. “They say when you’re lit better and I go, ‘When I’m lit better, I look probably 68,’” he said. “I just don’t want to be creepy about it — and that’s kind of the borderline image these days.”
Toy Story 5, which Allen described as his latest return as Buzz Lightyear, is in theaters now. More than 30 years after first suiting up as the Space Ranger, he said he’s still learning what hits hardest—especially when a story asks characters, and audiences, to make room for romance.
Tim Allen Toy Story 5 Buzz Lightyear Jessie Joan Cusack creepy kiss fatherhood Shifting Gears Jenna Elfman Michelle Nader romance age gap