Disney’s live-action remakes of its animated films have become a franchise in its own right, with several blockbusters behind it. Disney is now not only reorienting stories to make live-action movies, but with the latest installment, Pinocchio, Disney reuses actors. Luke Evans, who previously played Gaston in the new version of The beauty and the Beasthe’s back to playing another bad boy in the new Pinocchio for Disney +. Evans says it was an easy decision to play another Disney villain because the characters were so different.
Luke Evans’ performance as Gaston in the live-action The beauty and the Beast It is generally considered to be one of the highlights of that film, and since the remake was a huge box office success for Disney, we can assume that people really enjoyed the film. Now go back to playing another villain in another new Disney release. I had a chance to talk to Evans about how to play The Coachman in Pinocchio and I asked him if he had any reservations about returning to a similar role, but he explained that the roles were actually quite different, saying …
It was unusual for him to be asked to play a second Disney villain, and so close to the last. Very quickly it became clear that this is a very different type of villain, a very different type of character. There was no doubt about it, we immediately had an idea of who it could be, what it would be like and what it would be like. And he has nothing to do with Gaston.
Luke Evans plays the coachman Pinocchio, the man who takes the main character with a group of other children to Pleasure Island. The Coachman is a fairly small role in the original animated film, but the live part expands the role significantly and even gives Evans an original song to sing.
There is no doubt that Gaston and The Coachman are very different characters. Gaston is a pompous braggart, and there is humor and theatricality in the way Gaston acts, at least in the beginning. The coachman is a much darker character. The whole Pleasure Island sequence is what it does Pinocchio an incredibly dark new version of Disney.
The two characters are also very different. Luke Evans is very recognizable as Gaston, but at first you may not realize that he is the actor who plays the coachman. When we first meet him, he is dressed entirely in black, with long black hair and a mustache that largely hides his face. Evans told me that he likes being able to disappear in the role behind the makeup and that part really works.
While Disney’s endless stream of live-action remakes may be based on films we know quite well, each is certainly unique in its own way, which opens the door for actors to appear in more than one and always play very different characters. I guess Disney won’t be returning to Luke Evans anytime soon to play another villain, but if the role is different enough, that might not be the worst idea.
Source: Cinemablend
