Mark Strong has compared his experience playing a villain in both Shazam! and Green Lantern for DC.
Shazam! won’t be the first time actor Mark Strong plays a big screen villain for DC, as he has previously played the part of Sinestro in the not so popular Ryan Reynolds-led Green Lantern. A lot has changed since then, however, and Strong is getting a second crack at things with Dr. Thaddeus Sivana in Shazam!
How has the experience differed from Green Lantern? Well, Strong sat down with ComicBook.com for a recent interview and spoke about the two contrasting experiences:
“I loved Sinestro because I always thought if we can really manifest that guy, a look for that guy as he is in the comics, that would just be insane. I love the fact that he looked the way he did, and I really enjoyed it, and it was such a shame to me that movie didn’t kick in, you know, because I thought that part was great, but I feel with Sivana, what I’m being allowed to do is take Sinestro on, if you like, so that sequence at the end of the first one where he puts the yellow ring on and goes bad, I feel like it’s almost like a battle, like a relay, when the battle is being handed over from Sinestro to Sivana.”
SEE ALSO: Black Adam won’t appear in any Shazam! sequels until after his own solo movie
Strong will certainly be crossing his fingers that fans react more positively to Shazam! than they did to Green Lantern. No matter the outcome, however, it seems clear that he has enjoyed both experiences.
We all have a superhero inside us, it just takes a bit of magic to bring it out. In Billy Batson’s (Asher Angel) case, by shouting out one word—SHAZAM!—this streetwise 14-year-old foster kid can turn into the adult Super Hero Shazam (Zachary Levi), courtesy of an ancient wizard. Still a kid at heart—inside a ripped, godlike body—Shazam revels in this adult version of himself by doing what any teen would do with superpowers: have fun with them! Can he fly? Does he have X-ray vision? Can he shoot lightning out of his hands? Can he skip his social studies test? Shazam sets out to test the limits of his abilities with the joyful recklessness of a child. But he’ll need to master these powers quickly in order to fight the deadly forces of evil controlled by Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong).
Shazam will see Zachary Levi starring as the titular superhero, with Asher Angel as his young alter-ego Billy Batson, Jack Dylan Grazer as Freddy Freeman, Ian Chen as Eugene Choi, Jovan Armand as Pedro Peña, Grace Fulton as Mary Marvel, Cooper Andrews as Victor Vasquez, Faithe Herman as Darla Dudley, Mark Strong as Dr. Thaddeus Sivana, Djimon Hounsou as the Wizard, Adam Brody as Freddie Freeman, Ross Butler as Eugene Choi, D. J. Cotrona as Pedro Pena, Meagan Good as Darla Dudley, and Michelle Borth as Mary Bromfield. The film is set for release on April 5th 2019.
