When That ’70s Show ended, Wilmer Valderrama promised himself not to do the Fez voice again. However, things changed when 17 years later the sitcom got a sequel series on Netflix with That ’90s Show.
“You come around so many years later, you get an opportunity, and you get this phone call saying, ‘Hey, they’re bringing the band back together and it’s the same writers and the same producers and all of that. Will you be open to playing Fez again?’” Valderrama said during an appearance on The Jennifer Hudson Show. “And I had to really think about it because first and foremost, I was like, ‘Can I still do the voice?’”
That ’70s Show ended in 2006 and Valderrama was ready to move on from the character he played on the Fox sitcom for 8 seasons adding, “I had sworn and literally promised myself that I would never do the voice again because it was just time for my next chapter and becoming what I need to be at that time. I said, ‘I’m never gonna do it again.’ Even at the tipsiest of me, you couldn’t even get me to do it.”
Things changed for Valderrama once he had a table read with the cast saying, “As soon as I opened the script and the first line came out of my mouth, it was emotional. I got a little choked up because I heard him again,” he recalled. “It was just a beautiful moment to relive that. And the fact that Netflix was able to put it on such a stage where everybody around the world that had found it in some way found it again and all of you connected with it. Really great. It’s so silly.”
In the sequel series, Valderrama continues to play Fez, who is now a successful business owner of a chain of hair salons called Chez Fez. The actor said that he pitched the idea that Fez would “be the Paul Mitchell of Wisconsin” and “they loved the idea.”
That ’90s Show also stars Andrea Anders, Debra Jo Rupp and Kurtwood Smith.
Watch Valderrama’s full interview in the video posted below.