Happy Casting Day to...
Hey everyone!
Time for a much overdue casting announcement! Today I'm SUPER thrilled to announce that I've decided to cast pnutbutterporkchops as Tommy Oliver/"final boss" Lord Drakkon!
Of the castings made so far, he's a legit dark horse that came out of left-field and totally blindsided me--like literally the last person I shortlisted as Tommy after 8 months on-going. However, it wasn't exactly love at first sight like it was say with mcb's Trini, but more of snowball rolling downhill.
Upon his initial CCC audition, it was like "Wow, that's a pretty interesting voice..." Then when he submitted his Acoustic, he impressed me with his varied range and the butter smoothness behind his deliveries. And then with his R1 audition, I was genuinely blown away by how effortlessly Tommy's bad boy "machismo," radiated off him, along with some utterly fantastic improvisions of his lines that I had to include over his more straightforward/faithful reads of the script.
Add to that the immediate on-screen chemistry between him and Alice Irvin's Kim in their scene together--it pretty much closed the books on him as Tommy for me.
It was a long time coming, and through the months, I heard many potentially interesting takes (thank you to everyone who submitted for the role!), but I think the big challenge with Tommy was--JDF is so instinctually tied to Tommy's aesthetic, it's hard to think of someone else performing the role and really believing it's that character. Besides Scyther' Inc's Joey Sourlis, who pretty much has the JDF reincarnated vibe on lockdown, it's been one of the biggest "Can someone really come in with a fresh take and vibe and make you believe it's the same character you already know and love?" I really can't say I knew the answer--until now!
So, to celebrate, enjoy the newly completed Saba audition mock-up, where Pnbpc absolutely crushed it as Tommy yet again!
