*Disney provided my travel expenses during the #ThorDarkWorldEvent. All opinions expressed are my own.
Zachary Levi…such a sweet guy! Zachary Levi stepped up to fill the role of Fandral in the newest Marvel movie Thor: The Dark World. We got a chance to chat with him for about 30 minutes right before the red carpet premiere and let me tell you he was so much fun. He’s got a great personality and is really funny. I loved this interview and wanted to share with you some of my favorite parts from it. I also included a few tidbits about Zachary Levi that you may not have known.
Interesting Facts About Zachary Levi that you may not know:
- He personally checks his twitter feed, quite often. So give him a shout out and you may get a tweet back.
- He sang the Tangled song at the Oscars and it was a dream come true but at the same time ” the most nerve-racking experience of my life”.
- He dislocated a rib and at one point slammed his finger in his trailer door during the filming of Thor: The Dark World.
- He was originally set to play Fandral in the first Thor movie but filming schedules got in the way and the role was given to Josh Dallas.
- He voiced the role of Flynn Rider in Disney’s Tangled.
Did you bring a little bit of Flynn Riders charm to your role?
You bring a little bit of yourself to every role you do. And I think that it’s really just kind of a matter of is this a charming character, is it not, a loyal character, is he not, is he trust worthy, is he loving, is he menacing, is he strong, is he weak, is he nerdy. I mean, I feel like I’ve played my share of nerdy characters, and that’s an easy dial for me.
But, Flynn Rider was a dream come true. I mean, I grew up doing nothing but watching Disney cartoons and movies, and particularly musicals, and loving all of them, and dreaming about getting to do just that. When I first auditioned for Flynn Rider, he was English, he had a British accent. Ah, and I don’t know if that was more just kind of, just, they-they were still kind of deciding is he going to have a British accent or not or whatever.
So the original Flynn Rider and Fandral are much more similar than people realize. And then, Flynn ended up becoming much more my own kind of intonation voice. And Fandral was very much more British. Well he’s Asgardean, but they all speak with British accents.
We’re you a fan of the comics before this?
Absolutely. All of it, yeah. I was really big in X-Men, the whole kind of mutant category, like X-Men, X-Factor, and X-Force, New Mutants, all that kind of stuff I really, really loved. Spider-Man, Iron Man to an extent, Captain America. I went through phases depending on how old I was, or what I was into at the time.
What was the most challenging aspect of taking on the role of Fandral?
I think probably just deciding to step into the shoes that somebody else has already started. I’m very much about respect and respecting people in my world and in my vocation. I wanted to do right by him, I wanted to do right by Marvel, I wanted to do right by the cast, and do my own take on it. I didn’t want to emulate what he did. But I also wanted to do him right through that process. And he’s an incredibly sweet guy. We got to talk right before I shipped off to London, actually I saw him at Comacon and he was incredibly kind, he and Jennifer. Ah, we all caught up and laughed about it.
Do you have to do any extra training to get you more in shape for this role?
No, you know what’s interesting is that I was on like a really strict workout regimen until I got to London. And then I tried on my wardrobe for the first time and I realized nobody will ever be able to tell whether I’m ripped or not. I thought they would, I thought, oh, we’re doing a superhero movie. But I am covered, I’m literally like from here, I got this big old collar, you’ll see. I got a big old collar and I am just, you don’t see any skin other than my face. I’m even wearing gloves you don’t even see my finger.
And then once I learned my fight choreography I realized that I was more than capable of doing that in my physical state. So then my training just became drinking beers and eating chips, thank you Elmer Fudd.
Zachary Levi was such a pleasure to talk with! He is so sweet and kind and even though he was going straight to the red carpet after our interview he didn’t rush us at all and in fact he insisted on answering more questions. After our interview we got a chance to take a group photo with Zachary and was very excited to get to stand right next to him.
Thor: The Dark World is now playing in theaters everywhere be sure to see it, it’s an amazing movie and Zachary does a fantastic job playing Fandral. Be sure to give @ZacharyLevi a shoutout on Twitter and use the hashtag #ThorDarkWorldEvent. You never know he may tweet you back 🙂