This weekend will see the debut of Blade among some other supernatural heroes teaming up with Spider-Man to take on Dracula in the Ultimate Spider-Man Halloween special. The hour-long episode puts Terry Crews as the voice of vampire Blade.
Via
Newsarama interview, Crews spoke about playing Blade for animation and what he wanted to bring to the role:
The aspects of Blade I’ve enjoyed most is how deep the character is. You’re talking about a guy who straddles two worlds; he’s a vampire who gets rid of evil vampires. That’s kind of nuts. There’s a certain dichotomy to Blade that’s important, but in doing this with the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series you also have to do it for a children’s audience; people sometimes forget that.
What I wanted to do here is deliver Blade’s gravitas and seriousness to the show, but also bring some fun to it as well. It’s harder than people think to do something serious that’s also palatable for kids. But if you do it right and fine the tone like we did, it works out great. When I saw the results, I was really happy.
Without revealing too much, Crews also spoke excitedly about a scene between Blade and Nick Fury:
Once they showed me the playback of Blade and Nick Fury facing off with each other, I said ‘This is cool as s#$t!’”. Nick Fury there with his eyepatch, Blade with his sharp teeth; seeing those two getting angry and facing off, forcing Spider-Man to separate them, was great. It’s a cool movement, and I’d love to see that in a live-action movie even.
Crews is a favourite fan choice to play the role of Luke Cage AKA Power Man, but he explains that he is not interested in the role simply because Marvel have not expressed interest in it. He goes on to say that he would like to play the Thing from the Fasntastic Four or X-Men's Colossus:
Some people bring up Luke Cage, but honestly I have to step out of that because Marvel’s never really expressed an interest in making it. If Marvel hasn’t expressed interest in it, why should I? I’m interested in actually doing a character that’ll see the light of day; that’s one of the reasons I chose to do Blade here. I don’t want to be a part of something that’s going to sit on the shelf and never get made.
One character I always thought I could play is the Thing from Fantastic Four. Another character I’ve always loved as a fan is Colossus. If there was a way to make that happen that worked, I would love to be Colossus.
You can’t make yourself President; the people make you the President. If people want me to be a part of this superhero genre, it’ll happen. People get what they want. I feel like we need to make new superheroes, African-American superheroes, that people would accept. Whatever I do, it has to be right – for me, for the character, and for the fans.
Click the link below for Newsarama's full interview with Crews.