During a recent interview with IGN, Bryan Cranston discussed his upcoming role of Zordon in the live-action Power Rangers film reboot.
Cranston on his relationship with Power Rangers co-creator Haim Saban: “Haim Saban called. 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. I went in and did a bunch of different voices. I was 23 or 24. I wasn’t doing younger voices obviously. I did a lot of villains and ‘You shall pay for that!’ It was fun. And I was glad to have the job. I was learning a lot.”
On his voice work in SuperMansion: “Being able to tell a story with just your voice, you really have to focus on that. Then 35 years later, things have moved forward and I get a call to do this and at first I thought ‘Ah, I don’t think I want to.’ Because we have our show [SuperMansion] and I don’t want to step over in the same [voice over] category.”
Cranston on why he took the role of Zordon in Power Rangers: “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.’ I read it and went ‘You’re right.’ 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.”
Cranston on how his version of Zordon will be a frustrated mentor: “He is a frustrated mentor of these kids. 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 film is set to arrive in theaters on March 24.