“The Turtles were kind of dormant in the popular culture for a while, but then a few years ago, when Nickelodeon unveiled the animated series, my two young sons started watching and became increasingly pro-Turtle by the day,” says Arnett, who turns 44 on May 4. “By the time the movie came around for me, I was kind of immersed in it.”
Arnett got huge Dad props by taking his boys, now ages 3 and 5, to the New York sets while the movie was being shot last year. He plays TV cameraman Vernon Fenwick, who helps Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello and reporter April O’Neil (Megan Fox) fight the evil Shredder (William Fichtner) and his minions in the Michael Bay-produced adventure.
“They always wanted to see Shredder, all the different characters,” he recalls. “They’d come and they’d watch rehearsals, especially when we were doing big action scenes. It was cool to share that experience with them.
“It was one of those weird, personal life converging with professional life things in a very organic way, which was kind of similar to my experience on ‘The Lego Movie’ as well,” Arnett happily acknowledges. “But now I’m gonna have to start thinking of some new, big, follow-up tricks, y’know? I think I’m just gonna let their interests dictate what kinds of parts I do from now on.”
