Vulture posted an interesting tidbit they picked up at Friday’s mega The Walking Dead event in New York and it concerns the stick work of Lennie James. It turns out he was trained by Donatello himself from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, at least second and third in the film series.
Steven Ho, who played Donatello in those films, is the man behind James’ training with the bo staff and he’s helped out many action stars with their fight training for years, showing off some of his moves for Conan a few times over the years. Here you can see him wearing his Donatello costume, complete with magnificent mullet and motorcycle.
James seems proud of how his work with the stick has paid off for the show, giving some credit to Ho’s teaching while chatting with Vulture:
“I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I took to it much faster than I thought I would. And, that made shooting the series a lot better. It meant that we could push along what we’d show in an episode at a higher level. And, I feel like the stick has become important to Morgan’s identity.”
It’s certainly bound to pay off this season when he apparently goes up against Rick in some sort of bullheaded rush for leadership in Alexandria. Nothing like a good stick fight, with all credit to Steven Ho if it looks amazing. He even makes Conan look badass.
(Via Vulture)
