Academy Award-nominated actor Bryan Cranston has his pick of film projects but the diverse star hasn’t forgotten when he started out. As a young twenty-something Cranston got his start doing voice over work for Saban, including providing the voices for villains on the hit series ‘Mighty Morphin Power Rangers’ a show that was imported from Japan and dubbed into English.
Cranston recently stated:
“I know Haim (Saban) 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 was such a fixture with Saban that the Blue Ranger, Billy was given the surname Cranston in his honor. (Something that the actor, David Yost isn’t too pleased about these days.)
And while Cranston, who was nominated for an Oscar for ‘Trumbo’ and won numerous awards for his role as Walter White on the hit TV series ‘Breaking Bad’, could easily aim for highbrow fare, but he is going home so to speak, playing Zordon, the mentor of the Power Rangers in the upcoming big screen adaptation of the show on which he got his start.
“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.”
“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.”
Cranston joins Elizabeth Banks who is playing Rita Repulsa as well as relative newcomers R.J. Cyler (Billy the Blue Ranger), Becky G. (Trini the Yellow Ranger), Ludi Lin (Zack the Black Ranger), Dacre Montgomery (Jason the Red Ranger) and Naomi Scott (Kimberly the Pink Ranger). SNL alum Bill Hader will provide the voice of sidekick Alpha-5. Dean Israelite directed the film, which is due on March 24.
Source: SuperHeroStuff.com
