ComingSoon Senior Movie News Editor Brandon Schreur spoke to the cast of Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles about the Paramount+ series. Micah Abbey (Donatello), Nicolas Cantu (Leonardo), Brady Noon (Raphael), and Shamon Brown Jr. (Michelangelo) discussed voicing the four turtles and what they learned about their characters throughout the course of the series.
“The series explores the adventures of everyone’s favorite pizza-loving heroes as they emerge from the sewers onto the streets of NYC,” the Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles logline reads. “Leo, Raph, Donnie, and Mikey are faced with new threats and team up with old allies to survive both teenage life and villains lurking in the shadows of the Big Apple.”
Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is now streaming on Paramount+.
Brandon Schreur: My question for all four of you is, you were in Mutant Mayhem, obviously, last year. It was a huge hit, tons of fun, and widely beloved by everyone. I know Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was kind of in the works around the time the movie came out, I think it was announced a week before. How did it feel when you got the scripts for this series and you realized you get to keep playing these characters? Do you remember what your reaction was?
Micah Abbey: I was like, ‘Let’s do this thing!’ I love hanging out with these guys, they’re all awesome. We just have a good time. We were all excited. We were all texting in the group chat like, ‘Let’s do this thing.’
Nicolas Cantu: Yeah, I was hyped, I can say. Working on the movie with these guys was so fun, and being able to spend more time in this world, playing this character, is just a blessing. I’m really excited for fans to see the show.
Brady Noon: Continuing to be part of such a big franchise is just, obviously, a great opportunity. It gives us — now after we’ve seen the impression that everybody had on the first movie, this gives us now some time to go back and change certain things that we wanted to change or correct some certain things. Overall, it was just really, really exciting.
Shamon Brown Jr.: Pretty much what everyone is saying, it’s just amazing. I feel like sometimes the words are indescribable, at times, honestly. It’s definitely awesome to continue the story and keep it going.
Sure, definitely. And you guys are so much fun in it, too. I know one of my favorite parts about Mutant Mayhem was seeing the four of you interact together. I know you were recording your lines together and there was a lot of improv. Was it the same for this show? Were you recording together and making up stuff as you go along?
Cantu: It was very different for the show because the show kind of highlights the turtles individually. As you’ll see, we kind of get split up. You have an episode following Mikey’s journey, Donny’s, Raph’s, and Leo’s. We had to record solo because we were flying solo. I still think we had the opportunity to throw in the flare of the characters that everyone loved from the movie, just from an individual standpoint. If anything, I feel like we went crazier being alone in the booths and just firing things off.
I was going to ask you about that, too. For the first four episodes, at least, you guys are kind of all on your own, doing your own thing. We kind of learn some things about the turtles, they have to un-learn some stuff and pick up some new skills. For each of you, what did you learn about your character while you were doing your stand-alone episode?
Abbey: I think we all learned how to act by ourselves and realize how much we really do need our brothers as much as we feel like we’re better than one another. We realized how much we rely on each other and how much we really care about each other. I realized that, in the booth, as an actor, myself, how much I rely on these guys. They’re just so talented I need these guys in the booth, I need these guys to work off of in order to take things from them and work on my own craft.
Cantu: I’d say one thing I learned from Leo — I’m thinking specifically about one episode, but it’s patience. He’s dealing with quite a crazy character and I think it really pushes him to his limit. You don’t really see Leo get exasperated or angry, so I think seeing him pushed to that limit and seeing how his trust in this other character eventually pays off in the end, I thought it was a very nice lesson.
Noon: I think, a particular episode I can think of, in episode three, which is Raph’s episode where he has to pretty much negotiate his way out of a kidnapping. I just thought that was pretty funny. It highlights how Raph is usually the guy to punch his way through an escape and, now, he’s sitting here talking, trying to conversate, and get on the level of other people. That’s a big step for Raph and I feel like I’m excited for people to see that.
Brown Jr.: I think for Mikey, when doing the first movie, I felt like we all got to depend on each other and we fed off each other’s energy so much. For me, coming into this, I felt like I still had that energy from the previous film, but this time I got to know my version of Michaelangelo. I feel like in all the [previous] iterations, all the Michaelangelos have their own thing that made them special and memorable. So, for me, it was like, ‘What can Shamon do to make this version of Mikey special?’ Getting to know him, his flaws, and his strengths through the script — it was fun to play.
