Tony Revolori Loved Playing A Hero In 'Willow' & He Still Wants To Face Spider-Man As Venom
"I kind of want to do it for the fans."
Tony Revolori as Prince Graydon in "Willow." Right: Tony Revolori.
Tony Revolori is done playing the sidekick, and while he finally gets a chance to take a lead role in the Willow series on Disney+, he’s not ready to stop there.
Revolori takes on the role of Prince Graydon in the new series on Disney+, which sees him join a band of adventurers on a classic fantasy quest — with a touch of Gen Z humor and charm.
"It's one of the things that attracted me to the role, and he has a wonderful turn," Revolori said of Graydon during a recent interview with Narcity. "It's honestly just fun to play something different that I haven't done before and in a genre I haven't been in before."
He added that he was a "big fan" of the original Willow film that dropped in 1988, "so it kind of felt like a no-brainer" to take a role in the series.
The series picks up nearly 20 years after the original film. Warwick Davis returns as the titular sorcerer himself, while Joanne Whalley is back as Queen Sorsha. Val Kilmer's swashbuckling Madmartigan leave a big hole with his absence due to Kilmer's health issues.
However, the old guard largely takes a back seat to a new cast of younger characters who bring fresh energy to the series, including Revolori, Ruby Cruz, Erin Kellyman, Ellie Bamber, Amer Chadha-Patel and Dempsey Bryck.
Revolori says the show still very much hits the same notes as the original film, combining fantasy and fun with witty banter and an extra "meta" element.
"Every character is funny, every character has got heart," he said.
He also hailed the show for including a diverse cast, in what he sees as a continuation of the original film.
"We're not cast because we're people of color, we were cast because we were, hopefully, the best for the roles and we happen to be people of color," he said.
Revolori also hit back at the online trolls who have already started to complain about "woke Willow" ahead of the series' release.
"For every 'Woke Willow,' you have three kids like me who didn't get to see themselves on screen," he said. "Now hopefully they will be able to believe themselves the hero of their own stories."
Revolori is perhaps best known for playing Zero Mustafa in Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel, and for playing Peter Parker’s bully, Flash Thompson, in the MCU’s Spider-Man flicks.
But Revolori says he’s happy to finally go from Zero to hero with Willow, and he’s a big fan of second chances. That could mean a season 2 of the Lucasfilm series. It could also mean a chance to play Flash again in the MCU and follow through on the character's comic-book fate, which involves becoming a gun-toting version of the anti-hero Venom.
“I don’t know which one I would pick right now,” he told Narcity. “There’s always love for Flash in my head, and I would love to do that massively, just because I think it’s a character that I researched and I’ve done so much with, and I kind of want to do it for the fans.”
However, he said he’d also love to do a second season of Willow so he could reconnect with the cast, because he’d love “another vacation” with the ensemble.
“I love them all dearly,” he said. “So yeah, I can’t answer.”
Willow debuted on Disney+ on November 30, with new episodes added each Wednesday.