Bryan Cranston revealed said that the script, and its depiction of “real kids,” was what ultimately convinced him to join the upcoming Power Rangers reboot. Cranston will be playing Zordon, the Rangers’ mentor, after voicing some of the original TV series’ monsters at the start of his career.
However, when he first heard of the project, he was skeptical. “I thought, Power Rangers?…And I had a phone call with the director and he said, ‘Think of it this way…Like Batman came from TV and became a completely different animal in the movies, so too is it here. We’re going to take this and revamp it and it’s going to be grounded and real.’ And I thought ‘Okay, with that, let me read it.'”
After reading the script, Cranston was on board. “The kids sound like real kids,” he said, “and not everyone is this great athlete and everything is working out. I thought, ‘This might be a nice bookend to what I was doing before,’ since I started out doing voices.”
Cranston described Zordon as a “frustrated mentor.” He said, “They’re not advancing as I’d hoped. Some of them are not taking this seriously, the responsibility that has been placed upon them or that they have been chosen for. And yet, you’re a mentor. It’s almost like being a coach. You want to break down the individuality of them so that they can grow as a team.”
The role will also find Cranston working with Haim Saban again. As a young actor, Cranston worked for Saban Entertainment on a number of English dubbing and voiceover gigs, including his voice roles on Power Rangers. In fact, the original Blue Ranger was actually named Billy Cranston in his honor.
Directed by Dean Israelite and also starring Elizabeth Banks, RJ Cyler, Becky G, Bill Hader, Ludi Lin, Dacre Montgomery, and Naomi Scott, Power Rangers lands in theaters on March 24, 2017.
(Via IGN, image via Saban)
Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!
—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—
Follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google+.
