Exclusive: Sean Astin Reveals The Surprise Film He’s Most Recognized For
Sean Astin spoke with us at Baltimore Comic Con 2016 and was hilarious!
We had a chance to briefly speak with the great Sean Astin at the 2016 Baltimore Comic Con. From “Goonies” to “Lord of the Rings” to “Rudy” to “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” to…too many to name, Sean has had quite the career. During this conversation there were definitely some laughs to be had as Sean has quite a sense of humor. If it weren’t for his sense of humor, he might have been a little annoyed at not one but two moments of technical difficulties we had, but instead he remained upbeat throughout the interview.
First and foremost, we had to praise Sean’s career. He’s been in so many iconic films and among so many, we wanted to know what fans recognize him from the most. Surprisingly it was not “Rudy,” “The Goonies,” or “Lord of the Rings.”
Doug – “50 First Dates”
“You would think ‘Lord of the Rings’ or ‘The Goonies’, those are two of my big movies. And ‘Rudy’ is another movie I’m known for around town, but people come up to me all the time and want to know about ’50 First Dates’ where I play Doug, the muscle building, protein shake drinking, lisping kind of guy. The Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore movie. It’s funny to me. You know, I’ve been fortunate enough to have done my stuff that I’ve done and people throw out things that I can’t believe anybody actually saw.”
Secondly we wanted to discuss Sean’s most recent project as the voice of Raphael on “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” If you listen to the FadCast you may remember his co-star Eric Bauza discussing this show and his praise of Sean’s work. Being primarily a live-action actor, we wanted to know how Sean came into voice work.
“I was starring in an animated show for Disney Channel called ‘Special Agent Oso’ so I think I was kind of on the radar for some of the networks and such and I just got a call saying, ‘they’re down to the wire, they’ve got the other three turtles cast, they think you might be great for Raphael, do you want to come in and audition for it’? I said yeah and drove over there right away and there was no time between learning that it was happening and me being in the room. And they had like 2000 people in the little glass booth and when I walked in, I think they had basically decided they liked me before I got in there because it was like the best audition I had ever done in terms of how it felt because of the response that I got. And I walked outside and I called my agent and I said, ‘You know, if I didn’t get this job, if I don’t get an offer on this job, I pretty much need to quit because my ability to read a situation is broken’. And I got a call right away saying, ‘Oh no, they loved you, they want you to start tomorrow’. “
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
It’s incredibly difficult enough to make a career out of acting and Sean Astin has established that career and then some. With the momentum continually moving forward, we wanted to know about what Sean was looking forward to in his future.
“I’m 45 years old now, I’ve been married 25 years, I’ve got 3 kids and the oldest one’s at Harvard University…her second year! So I’m like…(in an old man voice) I’m not as young as I used to be and things are changing (laughter). So at this phase in my life, I don’t know what necessarily I’m right for you know? We’ll see what comes down the pipe. So I guess I’m in a mode of not waiting but eagerly anticipating what the next cool thing is and I have no idea what that’s going to be but I do have faith that something cool will come. If not, I’m going to have to come live at your house.”
Sean Astin was an amazing person to speak with. As said before, we had our mic interface die as well as our camera battery but Sean kept the mood fun and enjoyable despite my usual amount of stress when a situation goes wrong (haha). I kept things as concise as possible and unfortunately didn’t get to bring up a nostalgic movie moment discussing my love of the movie “Toy Soldiers.” But despite that, it was a relief to speak with someone who is both professional and comedic. He even ended the interview with a fun poke at Film Fad which was hilarious…and who doesn’t love a good roast!
Check out the full interview here!
