Alan Ritchson over zijn rol in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Fans van Alan Ritchson kunnen hem momenteel zien in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, maar deze acteur is daarna te zien als Raphael in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Tijdens een recentelijk interview onthulde Ritchson dat hij de stripboeken niet gelezen heeft om zich voor te bereiden voor de rol:

“I actually didn’t read any of the comic books- and I really hope I don’t offend anyone saying that- but for me, I think we all know who Raphael is. He’s known as the angry hothead of the group. He is quick tempered and is quick to act. He is less thoughtful of people’s feelings and emotions and consequences. That’s something I can relate to as a person. I am very quick to act, like, ‘Okay, decision’s made, let’s go for it.’

So I can relate to him in that sense, but I think just zoning in on who that guy is and then understanding the back story… how these guys were formed in the context of our story and where they came from, and the feelings of abandonment or betrayal. All those very real human feelings are something that are contained within that world, and I think we did a good job of creating a setting and a foundation for that.

So I had everything that I needed to create that character there. So I didn’t actually rely so heavily on somebody else’s perspective of Raphael twenty years ago, which to be honest like many of the cartoons like, this dude is smiling a lot. You know, they all look the same and there is so a much greater level of like, individual personality in this new reboot, you know that we haven’t seen before. So there wasn’t a lot for me to relate to, but I don’t know if people will understand where I am coming from, maybe until they see it, I don’t know.

I think as far as Ninja Turtles, I played a comic book hero [Aquaman] before, so I had some experience with trying to bring a character like that to life. It’s challenging because a comic book can span decades and there is an infinite number of authors to go to. The source material changes and these characters’ identities change. We still see it every day, like Superman is gay now in comic book nine hundred and eighty one, it’s like ‘Okay well, that’s different then than the guy that started out in number one.'”

Het is nog niet bekend wanneer we de eerste trailer voor Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles te zien krijgen. De film staat gepland voor augustus 2014 en wordt geregisseerd door Jonathan Liebesman. Hoofdrollen zijn er voor Megan Fox, Will Arnett, William Fichtner, Danny Woodburn. Alan Ritchson, Jeremy Howard, Noel Fisher en Pete Ploszek zijn te zien als respectievelijk de Turtles Raphael, Donatello, Leonardo en Michelangelo.

Vanaf 21 augustus 2014 draait Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in de bioscoop.