Netflix announced the casting for their live-action version of Cowboy Bebop. The platform is pulling out all the stops for John Cho’s turn as Spike Spiegel. Geoff Stults, Tamara Tunie, Mason Alexander Park, Rachel House, Ann Truong, and Hoa Xuande are all joining the cast. Stunts plays Chalmers, a former associate of Jet Black in the show. House is Mao of the “White Tigers” family. Tune steps in as Jazz club operator Ana and Park is her point-person in the establishment. Truong and Xuande are teamed up as Syndicate henchmen Shin and Lin. There’s a lot of the foils for the heroes among their ranks. People have been clamoring to see anything out of this series since it got announced. It feels like it’s inching closer and closer with each passing month. Netflix fans are going to be in for a treat when it premieres.
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Cho got some heavy praise from writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach earlier this year. He talked to io9 about what the actor is bringing to the lead role.
“You’ve seen him in comedies. You’ve seen him in dramas. The guy can do anything,” the writer explained. “To see John Cho bring his wonderful mastery of acting to this character, and then also to see the level of physical preparation that he’s done for this, is stunning.”
“[Co-writer] Chris Yost and I wrote this on a notecard and tacked it up to our whiteboard in the room. His motto for Spike Spiegel was always: Spike Spiegel is super f-cking cool,” Grillo-Marxuach added. “Is he tortured? Yes. Does he have a lot of tragedy in his backstory? Yes. Is he somebody who’s not the most sort of effusive with his emotions kind of guy? Yes, you know this. But he’s super f-cking cool. So, I think more than anything else, Spiegel’s super f-cking cool. John brings that to it in spades.”
Previously, when the topic of whitewashing was raised, producer Marty Edelstein said that fans could rest assured the team heard their concerns.
Adelstein stated, “…we have gone out of our way, because of all these anime movies that have come out and been accused of being whitewashed, we have really gone out of our way. We have the original composer, Yoko Kanno, doing music. The characters are all sort of multiethnic, and it’s a great cast. And the two episodes I have seen are so much fun. It’s really fun.”
Are you psyched for Cowboy Bebop? Let us know down in the comments!
