Exclusive: Ricky Whittle’s Ready To Take On ‘American Gods’Posted by Wilson Morales
Aprl 28, 2017
Starz has released new images and character posters to it highly-anticipated eight-episode first season of FremantleMedia North America produced STARZ Original Series “American Gods,” adapted from Neil Gaiman’s acclaimed contemporary fantasy novel, will make its network premiere on Sunday, April 30th at 9PM ET/PT.
American God has been translated into over 30 languages and earned numerous accolades including Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker Awards for Best Novel. The plot posits a war brewing between old and new gods: the traditional gods of mythological roots from around the world steadily losing believers to an upstart pantheon of gods reflecting society’s modern love of money, technology, media, celebrity and drugs. Its protagonist, Shadow Moon, is an ex-con who becomes bodyguard and traveling partner to Mr. Wednesday, a conman but in reality one of the older gods, on a cross-country mission to gather his forces in preparation to battle the new deities.
The cast includes Ricky Whittle as Shadow Moon, Ian McShane as Mr. Wednesday, Emily Browning as Laura Moon, Sean Harris as Mad Sweeney, Yetide Badaki as Bilquis, Bruce Langley as Technical Boy, Crispin Glover as Mr World, and Jonathan Tucker as Low Key Lyesmith.
Also appearing on the series are Orlando Jones as Mr. Nancy, Gillian Anderson as Media; Kristin Chenoweth as Easter; Jonathan Tucker as Low Key Lyesmith; Cloris Leachman as Zorya Vechernyaya; Peter Stormare as Czernobog; Chris Obi as Anubis; Demore Barnes as Mr. Ibis, Corbin Bernsen as Vulcan and Mousa Kraish as The Jinn.
For Whittle, who is best known for his role as Lincoln in The CW’s post-apocalyptic drama The 100
the role represents a big change for the British native. He’s the center of the series and is about to have the biggest role of the career thus far if the series take off like Game of Thrones.
In speaking exclusively with Blackfilm.com, Whittle talks about his role and taking on a lead role.
From The 100 to American Gods, how did you get to the point where you got this role, and it’s a main role, and you’re a centerpiece for it?
Ricky Whittle: Well, I had worked out with the incredible people at Warner Bros. and CW, Peter Roth and Mark Pedowitz, about my escape plan. I wasn’t in a very good situation with a certain person who I didn’t want to be around or to work with, and they allowed me to leave. I was going to leave at the end of the season. That’s when the audition process kind of started with American Gods. This role came up, and I thought “Yeah, that’s something I want to be a part of.” When I booked the job, that’s when the rewrites came in and the character was killed off instantly. But karma prevailed, and at the end of the day, you don’t appreciate the light without the dark, and I’m now blessed with an incredible showrunner in Bryan Fuller and Michael Green, and Neil Gaiman. You don’t look back.
You know, you’re constantly looking forward. This is an absolute monster, and I feel very blessed to be a part of it. It’s quite possibly the best ensemble cast I’ve ever seen on TV, two incredible showrunners. The source material from Neil Gaiman is incredible. Starz and Free Mantle have thrown everything at this show. This is a flagship show. And to be leading it all from the front with the likes of Ian McShane behind me and Julianne Anderson, Crispin Glover, Kristin Chenoweth. These are people I have looked to my whole life, and now I call them friend and work colleagues, and that really is a blessing and an honor.
For those who have not read the books, how would you describe your character?
Ricky Whittle: He’s Shadow Moon. His name, he’s a shadow of his former self. He’s a shadow of the man that we want and hope he becomes. He is broken, he is lost, he is in this empty vessel, when we first meeting him, because he has just lost the one thing that he held dear, the only thing in his life, which was his wife, Laura. When you only have one thing in your life and that is taken away, your whole world pretty much ends. I mean, what’s the meaning of moving on when you’ve got nothing to live for. That’s where we find Shadow at the beginning, this broken kind of twig in a stream, kind of just drifting along, when he kind of fall under the influence of Mr. Wednesday, the mysterious con-man played by Ian McShane.All of a sudden, his world is turned upside down, and he becomes the universe’s punching bag, as the universe continues to slap him in the face and try to provoke him. He’s a cynic and unbeliever, and he’s kind of introduced to this worlds of Gods. His struggle for the first season is basically, is he going crazy, or is the world actually crazy and magic exist.
Your character is going through a lot within the first few episodes. How much did you have to do for the role physically?
Ricky Whittle: Everything. I mean, we’ve got an incredible stunt team, but people like myself and Pablo are very athletic and very dedicated to making sure we give the best possible representation of ourselves, and so we want to make sure that director can not cut away because they’ve got a body double in there, a stunt double, that they can shoot whatever they want when we’re in there. The choreography knew we were capable, so allowed us to do it, which was great. So everything you see in there is real and is us. Physically, I had to put on 35 pounds for the role, to respect the book. In The 100, I was 175 pounds. Lincoln was 175 pounds. Shadow topped out at just over 210 pounds, so that’s that a 35-pound swing, which involved 4,000 calories a day food, training two to four hours a day, and just literally food was not fun for me, it was a chore. I didn’t eat because I was hungry. I ate because it was time. So it was a constant kind of work-in-progress. Now I’ve lost like 15 pounds since, because it doesn’t work for any other roles.
But Shadow is huge. When we go back to season two, I’ll have to put on that weigh again. So I didn’t want to drop back down to 175. I thought “Let’s just sit somewhere nice,” and so I sit somewhere around 195 to 200 at the moment, so I’ve only got that extra 10 or so pounds to put on.
A lot of your scenes are with Ian. Can you talk about being a fan of his and now working along with him?
Ricky Whittle: You don’t get a better education than being on set, and you don’t get a better education than working with one of the best actors of our generation in Ian McShane. Watching him work, watching his nuances, watching his choices, watching how he affects your choices, because as an actor it’s about reacting to those around you, and when you’re reacting to such genius all of a sudden he raises your levels. So I feel I’ve raised my game as an actor now, and I’ve got this vehicle here to really show the world what I’m capable of. If they like what they see, which seems to be ringing true in the reviews, it’s down to Ian McShane and this incredible cast raising my levels, because it’s an absolute pleasure and honor.
I’ve watched him since I was a kid, in Love Joy, as America knows him through Dead Wood and Pirates of the Caribbean, and John Wick most recently. This is an incredible actor who is versatile and great at what he does. Without meaning to insult any of his former work, which he is incredible in, I feel this is his best role and he will win awards for this. I’m that confident, because he is perfect as Mr. Wednesday, and as a character, a lovable that we’re going to love to watch try to manipulate Shadow. So I feel very blessed to work with him and this incredible cast.
Is there going to be a difference from book to screen like we have seen in Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead?
Ricky Whittle: This is a different animal, completely different animal. Everything that fans love in the book is going to be in the show, but more, because there’s characters such as Mad Sweeney, Laura, who are sporadic in the book. We are going to see where they are when they’re not seen in the book, which is exciting for those who are fans of American Gods and Neil Gaiman’s work, because now all of a sudden we’re expanding upon the universe that you know and love so dearly. So it’s going to be for you guys. Even the season finale is not in the book.
So even if you’ve read the book, you’re not going to know what’s going on. You kind of know the general story, you know a couple of reveals, and this show is all about reveal after reveal after reveal, so fresh eyes to Neil Gaiman and American Gods like myself, I’m the perfect advertisement, this is going to just blow your mind. It blew my mind when I was reading the book, when I was reading the scripts, and now when I’m watching the episodes. It blows my mind as a fresh pair of eyes. For those who know his work, it’s going to blow your mind because it’s so close to what you love and know dearly since 2001, but then adding so much more, which is very exciting that they kind of have this dream that they’ve imagined for 16 years come off a page and walk into your rooms at home. It’s very exciting.
I was saying earlier, Neil Gaiman is right up there with Stan Lee, Steven King. You know these authors because of the books that they’ve written and the loyal fanbase they created. Can you talk about working with him?
Ricky Whittle: I spoke with him at the very beginning of the shot. He came to see when Shadow first met Wednesday on the plane, and I got to talk to him about where Shadow came from, which is incredible. To know that where Shadow is, and to tap the brain where it came from, is a great bless. Beyond that, he’s just an incredible person to know. He is so … He’s a fountain of knowledge. Even when he talks, you feel like he’s telling a story, and he has you in awe. You’re just constantly gazing into him, like you’re drifting off, like he’s literally reading a book. But he’s just talking about general things. He could be reading a shopping list and you will be mesmerized. He had that kind of power and presence about him.
But at the heart of it all, he’s just really funny, really open, really caring and genuine, and he’s an incredible person. It just so happens he happens to be one of the most talented writers we’ve ever seen. It’s a great honor that we get to bring his book to life. When Neil Gaiman likes your work and likes what you’ve done to bring his words off the page, then any pressure to please the fans dissipates and fades away, because when the creator is happy, the fans need to be happy, because this is his work, this is his heart and soul that he pour out onto a page. It took him years to write, and he loves it. So I’m looking forward to passing this kind of gift onto the fans out there and letting the start their fan fiction, start the fan base, and just binge.
You talk about the fan base. When you were doing The 100, you went to Comic Con and was part of the group. Now you’ve got this series. You’re like “All right, I’m the center.”
Ricky Whittle: Front and center.
Now you’re front and center, everybody is around you. As an actor, you have your managers, you have your agents, but now you’re the front and center, and now you look at these things, you’re on the cover of places, magazines, etc. How do you stay humble, knowing what’s to come?
Ricky Whittle: I fear my mother. My mom is my queen. I’m a momma’s boy, I always will be. I’m not ashamed to say. You treat your mom and ladies in your life with respect. You treat everyone with respect. But that came from my mother. She said it’s all about you’re either a good person or you’re a bad person. Be someone you want your mother to be proud of. So I will always stay humble. Before I came out here, I was on my motorcycle, at traffic lights, and a bus with American Gods drove by. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that. It’s my picture on the side of a bus, driving through Venice, in California. I’m from Olden, not a nice area, a bit of a ghetto from England. And for that moment to really strike home, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more proud and more humbled. It felt incredible. And long may it continue. It’s only going to continue if I work my ass off, if I respect everyone I work with, and appreciate that it wasn’t just me that got me here. It was a combination of hard work, sacrifice, the people around me.
There’s a team around me in my reps and my family and my friends who support me, the fans who introduced me to this roles. I only knew about this role because of the fans, and so I always have a great bond with my fans, and will always will do. I’ll thank them to my dying day, because I would be here because of them, I wouldn’t have a job if it wasn’t for them. They get us from season to season. They’re the reasons we get renewed. But I didn’t even know about American Gods until they started hashtagging my name onto … Starz asked the fans, who do you want to play Shadow? And the fans started to hashtag my name. It became a popular thing, and that’s when I turned up on my feed, online. I thought, what is this about? I brought it to my reps, and they were like “Yeah, let’s have a look at it.”
So I’ll always stay humble because I know that there were a lot of people that it took to get me here, and I want to do them proud. So I’ll continue to work hard, continue to stay bless and grateful in life for everything I’ve achieve and hopefully will achieve in the future.
Presenting Shadow Moon
