Brian Truitt of USA Today recently caught up with veteran movie baddie Mark Strong at the Who's News event. Strong, who stars in the upcoming movies
KICK-ASS, Robin Hood and
John Carter of Mars will be heading to the New Orleans filming location of Martin Campbell's
Green Lantern sometime in
June after he wraps on the Carter set.
"For anybody who’s familiar with the Green Lantern and the origin story, the film closely follows the early comics. Sinestro starts out as Hal Jordan’s mentor, slightly suspicious and not sure of him because obviously Hal is the first human being who’s made into a Green Lantern. He’s certainly very strict and certainly unsure of the wisdom of Hal becoming a Green Lantern," explained Strong.
"He is a military guy but isn’t immediately bad. It’s the kind of person he is that lends himself to becoming bad over the course of the comics being written, but initially he’s quite a heroic figure."
Strong commented on Sinestro iconic look, which will closely resemble the character’s early DC Comics days,
"That widow’s peak and thin mustache was for some reason originally based on David Niven, and Hal Jordan was based on Errol Flynn. In the ‘30s and ‘40s, [Niven and Flynn] shared an apartment together in Hollywood when they were making movies and they were great friends. Obviously at the time, whoever was doing the original comics must have looked at them as guys doing very well in the film industry, and based those characters on them. So I would like to do justice to the Sinestro that was conceived for the comic books."
Comic purists should he happy to know that the filmmakers are worried about even the most minute detail when it comes to putting these characters on the big screen. Strong was recently fitted for
special Sinestro contact lenses that he will wear for the film.
Green Lantern is currently filming around New Orleans, LA; check out the latest location, which may feature a pivotal scene with Hal Jordan and Abin Sur,
HERE.
Information courtesy of USA Today; image courtesy of WormyT
UPDATE April 7th, 1700: Mark Strong talks more about portraying Sinestro with Cinematical.com -
"Sinestro, yeah, he is a fascinating character. I love the fact that there is all of this source material. But really you have to just concentrate on what is in this particular film, and he is very well-drawn in this film and I know exactly what I want to do with him. I think they have an intention to make more than one, which is amazing because then you get to follow the trajectory that Sinestro has through the comics, and that I would really look forward to as well. But in the first one, he is a very powerful presence, and I think his whole thing, Sinestro, is that he's very confident and very convinced in his own rightness and so kind of almost militaristic in his precision about how things should be that he has this single-minded way of the way the world should be, and that's what I need to bring to the film.
MPP - The more I hear from Strong regarding Sinestro, the more I feel that he was perfectly cast. He really does seem to thoroughly understand the different aspects of the character. I can't wait to see him interact with Reynolds on screen!
By TwitterButtons.net