Hey remember that version of Sinestro that had a ponytail? Yeah, I don’t either. But you can still try for it, right? Sorry, you can’t pull that shit with Mark Strong.
The actor did enjoy his time in the make-up chair, but when the idea of a goatee and ponytail came into play (is this the 90’s?) he had to decline, “Early on in the concept stage for the film, they took him into a different direction. He had a goatee and a long ponytail and just a different visage, really, and I was quite adamant that if we were going to do this you better re-create the comic — or one of the most popular versions of the comic through the years — or you risk a big misstep. The comic book character [created in 1961] was based on David Niven with the pencil mustache and all. Green Lantern was based on Paul Newman and Carol Ferris [played by Blake Lively in the new film] was based on Liz Taylor. So in a way it was a movie cast that became a comic book and now is going to be a film.”
Mark Strong gets it and he didn’t even read comics, “There are a lot of interesting places this could go, as readers of the comics know. Myself, I wasn’t a comic book reader, I was in England. The comics there were ‘Whizzer and Chips‘ and things like that, not really the superhero stuff. Marvel and DC were around but they were really exotic stuff, to me at least, and I didn’t have any older brothers or anyone to indoctrinate me into that world. So all of that was a bit of a mystery to me. So it was only recently that I delved into this world and I was amazed at how enthusiastic people are for it. Some people live and breathe this stuff.”
Last year on the set of GREEN LANTERN, Strong talked about how much he loved seeing himself physically change whether it was from make-up or a new medium, “I’ve learned that I’m the kind of actor who loves transformation. Wearing someone else’s clothes, someone else’s hair, somebody else’s face, that’s very interesting to me and I think it’s because I come from the theater. When I was in drama school I played 70-year-old characters and it was the accumulation of makeup and costume and wigs that allowed me to do that and find the performance. If you approach that digitally also, it’s not any different to me. In fact it’s exciting because it’s new and offers so much possibility. You can change physiology.”