There was surprise by many when Bryan Cranston was announced as the actor playing Zordon in the new Power Rangers movie a few months ago - even as some big Power Rangers fans knew that Cranston’s history with the franchise goes back to the beginning.
I spoke to Cranston at the TCA (Television Critics Association) press tour today, where he was promoting Season 2 of his animated series SuperMansion, and he explained how he came to appear in the new film.
“Haim Saban called,” Cranston explained, naming the producer who co-created the Power Rangers and owns the franchise (having re-acquired the property after Disney owned it for a few years). “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.”
Cranston’s work for Saban included animated and live-action TV series and films being imported from overseas, and eventually, as his career in live-action was beginning to take off, a couple of episodes of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, where he voiced some of the monsters on the series. By that point, the two had collaborated enough that Saban named the original Blue Ranger Billy Cranston as a tribute to the future Malcolm in the Middle and Breaking Bad star.
Cranston looked back fondly on his time with Saban, but had hesitation when first approached for the new film. “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.”
Bryan Cranston.
When he learned they wanted him to play to play a live-action role, he admitted he still had trepidation. “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,’” 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.”
Cranston realized “bookending” might sound a bit more severe then he meant it, adding, with a laugh, “Hopefully I’m not ending! ‘I’m announcing my death at the end of this!’ But no, it was a nice way to end it. Again, it’s all about storytelling and I’m excited to see it come out in March.”
As for how he would describe his version of Zordon, Cranston explained, “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.”
Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @TheEricGoldman, IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at http://ift.tt/LQFqjj.
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