Mark Strong will channel his inner David Niven for 'Green Lantern'

Mark Strong is definitely making a name for himself by causing trouble for heroes of all sorts on movie screens. The British actor was the foil for Robert Downey Jr. in the hit Sherlock Holmes, and will be a thorn in the sides of teenage superheroes and Russell Crowe, respectively, in Kick-Ass (out April 16) and Robin Hood (May 14). But comic book fans are most interested to what he will bring to the supervillain Sinestro in next year’s big-budget Green Lantern movie. Strong, who’s currently filming John Carter of Mars in England, heads to New Orleans in June to join Green Lantern star Ryan Reynolds, who will be playing flyboy-turned-space cop Hal Jordan. When I talked with him recently for an upcoming Who’s News item, Strong told me that he can’t speak too much about the role, but “for anybody who’s familiar with the Green Lantern and the origin story, the film closely follows the early comics. Sinestro starts out as Hal Jordan’s mentor, slightly suspicious and not sure of him because obviously Hal is the first human being who’s made into a Green Lantern. He’s certainly very strict and certainly unsure of the wisdom of Hal becoming a Green Lantern,” Strong says. “He is a military guy but isn’t immediately bad. It’s the kind of person he is that lends himself to becoming bad over the course of the comics being written, but initially he’s quite a heroic figure.” Sinestro first appeared in DC Comics’ Green Lantern series in 1961, and Strong says that the outfit and other aspects of the character very closely follow the character’s early days. “That widow’s peak and thin mustache was for some reason originally based on David Niven, and Hal Jordan was based on Paul Newman,” says Strong, who recently got fitted for special Sinestro contact lenses. “Obviously at the time, whoever was doing the original comics must have looked at them as guys doing very well in the film industry, and based those characters on them. So I would like to do justice to the Sinestro that was conceived for the comic books.”

Photos courtesy of DC Comics, Warner Bros. Pictures