Megan Fox and Will Arnett Talk ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’

Will Arnett and Megan Fox Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Interview
Will Arnett and Megan Fox star in ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ (Photo Courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles return to the big screen in a big-budget action film starring Megan Fox as reporter April O’Neil and Will Arnett as wise-cracking cameraman Vernon Fenwick. Directed by Jonathan Liebesman (Battle Los Angeles, Wrath of the Titans) and produced by Michael Bay, this TMNT film finds the heroes in a half shell fighting Shredder and his Foot Clan goons in order to save New York City.

Together at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con, Arnett and Fox discussed what TMNT fans can expect from the new film and they talked about the continuing appeal of the Turtles.

Will Arnett and Megan Fox Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Interview

What do you think is going to feel most familiar about this TMNT movie to long-time fans?

Megan Fox: “There is so much. I don’t feel like it strayed very much at all.”

Will Arnett: “One of the great things, I think a real testament actually was today. Megan and I saw the movie a while ago. We’ve seen various incarnations of it before even the effects were done. I felt like what one of the great things was seeing it so incomplete and still liking it, and still buying into it, thinking, ‘Wow, this is a really fun movie and a lot of the stuff that’s going to be cool and make it fun isn’t even done yet.’ But now that the movie is done and seeing it, and seeing it in [Hall H], watching Kevin Eastman watch that who created it and talking to him backstage, and then talking to him backstage after it played, and how excited he was… He created it and I know he doesn’t own it, the fans don’t own it, whatever.

Nobody owns it, okay? But to see him excited about that in a real way, that was a great moment for me. That kind of made me feel like, ‘Okay, we did something okay.’ You know, if he was in tears and ran out of here with mascara streaming down his face – I don’t know if he wears mascara – that’s not my providence. But, you know.”

Megan, I’ve heard you speak very specifically about Lord of the Rings during these interviews. Did you have equally intimate knowledge of April O’Neil?

Megan Fox: “Well, I think it’s hard to have…”

Will Arnett: “Wait, you talk about Lord of the Rings?”

Megan Fox: “Yeah, man. Are you being sarcastic, because I don’t remember if I talked to you about it?”

Will Arnett: “No, we didn’t talk about this.”

Megan Fox: “Okay, yeah, I get down with Lord of the Rings. My movie room is full of memorabilia.”

Will Arnett: “Whoa. Sh*t.”

Megan Fox: [Laughing] “Those were novels, those were Tolkien novels, so I don’t think you can really have the same sort of knowledge about the Turtles that you can about Lord of the Rings, because there is just so much more of it. I mean, he created a language. There is just so much more there. I definitely am familiar with [April and the Turtles], but I am not one of those people… I will say that I sort of fall into that nerd elitist, like overly critical, judgmental, group when it comes to Lord of the Rings. And I’m like, ‘The Ents should have been scary. Why did they do them like that?,’ or whatever, because I knew so much about it as a kid. But I’ve never been judgmental of Turtles for some reason. I just love them every way that I’ve seen them and every way that they have come.”

What is the appeal of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

Megan Fox: “It’s lighthearted, it’s fun. Yeah, it’s weird, they’re teenage mutant talking ninja turtles.”

Will Arnett: “There’s something captivating. You know, one of the questions we had today in the panel in Hall H was, ‘Why won’t the property die?’ Literally, the guy asked why won’t it die. And it’s not a bad question because you have to say, ‘Why hasn’t it gone away?’ So many things are in vogue and then they fall out, but for some reason, Turtles keeps coming back. I think that there is something about them. There is this sort of intangible thing about these characters. They’re such distinctive characters and yet together they kind of form a unit. They’re brothers, which is great and everyone loves that aspect of it.”

Megan Fox: “They’re outcasts and they’re also heroes.”

Will Arnett: “Yeah, and because they’re so different and so distinct, and they compliment each other, it is sort of like the ultimate example of teamwork, if you will. There’s something great about that that I think people respond to apart from just the good versus evil.”

That’s the Marvel template you’ve just described.

Will Arnett: [Laughing] “Make no mistake: I’m a genius. Everybody quote me on that.”

In the original Turtles, April has a special kinship with Raphael. Is there something similar to that in the movie?

Megan Fox: “When we were filming there was a connection with Raphael, because they sort of – I’ve always been on this thing that the Turtles are based off the four Greek temperaments, and Raphael is a choleric temperament and that is sort of how we were playing April. So, there was this bond but also this opposition, like a brother and sister fighting, that we had. However, what took over the movie and what you’re going to see a lot of, is there is a bond with Mikey. There’s a bond with Mikey.”

Will Arnett: “Yeah, there’s a definite bond with Mikey. You guys had a thing. I think if anything Vern, maybe he and Raph rubbed each other the wrong way. That’s mainly because Alan [Ritchson] drove me nuts. [Laughing] No, I love him.”

What do the other three Turtles represent in the Greek temperaments?

Megan Fox: “There’s choleric. There’s phlegmatic, which I’d say is Donatello. There’s sanguine, which would be Mikey, and there is melancholic, which is Leonardo. This is what I’m saying. I haven’t had that confirmed by Eastman, but that is my theory.”

Will Arnett: “Let’s get him in here!”

Megan Fox: “Yeah. You can take a test and find out who you are, actually.”

It easier to work with actors playing Turtles than working in the abstract sense with Transformers?

Megan Fox: “Definitely. There are people like Shia [LaBeouf] who can get real vulnerable and intimate talking to a stick with a tennis ball on the top, but it’s hard. It’s so much easier when someone is sitting here and can ad-lib with you and improv with you, and push you, and pull away. You react just because someone else is reacting with you. So, it’s a lot easier and so much better.”

Will, who would win: Batman or Ninja Turtles?

Will Arnett: [In his lower, raspy Batman Lego Movie voice] “Bat-Turtles.”