Bryan Cranston’s motivation for playing the mentor role of Zordon in the upcoming “Power Rangers” film is quiet simple: the creator of the popular series reached out to him.
“Haim Saban called,” Cranston told IGN. “I know Haim and 35 years ago I was doing voice overs when I was first starting out and I would do it when they were dubbing into English and they had to change everything.”
Cranston, however, admits he wasn’t on board with being in the film at first… until, that is, he read the script. His mind was instantly changed.
“I thought, ‘Power Rangers? It’s kind of the [1960s] ‘Batman’ television show – ‘Pow! Zing! Whap!’ 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,’” added Cranston.
Once Cranston read the screenplay, he realized the project was worth it, not only because the teenagers in the film felt real but also because playing Zordon ties back to his own voice-over career from years ago.
“I read it and went ‘You’re right,’” Cranston continued. “The kids sound like real kids 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.”
“Power Rangers”opens in theaters March 24, 2017.