'American Gods' star Ricky Whittle describes his 'crazy' 16 auditions for the coveted role
Starz
"I was the first cast. I went through five months of a crazy process," Whittle told Business Insider of the audition process for Shadow Moon on the Starz series when we recently met with him and costar, Ian McShane, in New York City.
"They put you through it," McShane, who plays the character of Mr. Wednesday, added of the 16 auditions Whittle endured to capture his role.
Executive producer Bryan Fuller and Michael Green narrowed about 2,000 audition tapes submitted by actors for Shadow Moon. They narrowed the tapes to about 1200 and were only able to actually meet half of those actors.
"He was the last man standing," Fuller told Business Insider when we asked him and Green why Whittle was cast in the role later that same day in New York City.
"Meaning he literally had to slaughter them," Green interjected.
"Yeah. It's Hunger Games," continued Fuller. "Every time he came in, he grew into the role and showed us new colors of who Shadow could be and his storyline and jumped through 16 hoops. And some of those hoops were on fire. And some of them were over shark pits. But he just continued with the discipline of an athlete to work on this character and earn this role. So how did Ricky get it? he earned it."
Starz
Having built a dedicated worldwide following since the novel was published, the pressure of casting the right person for Shadow Moon was intense.
Described as having skin the color of "coffee and cream" in the novel, Shadow Moon had to be played by a person of color. Fans wondered if a TV adaptation would instead cast a Caucasian actor, which fueled worries that Starz would whitewash the character, a route many other Hollywood productions have taken in the past. The casting of Whittle, a British actor whose mother is white and whose father is Jamaican, fit the bill.
But Whittle's racial makeup was just the beginning. Aside from an early modeling career and starring among the ensemble cast for CW science-fiction drama, "The 100," he was a virtual unknown. For TV, Shadow Moon would have to show a more expansive range of emotions than the brooding ex-convict in the book. And Whittle had to prove he could deliver that.
"The show basically strayed away from the book Shadow, who's very internal stoic and blasé quiet," Whittle said. "But that's not something people want to watch. We had to adapt this to TV, so we added layers, charisma, made it more real."
Starz
"We gave him anxiety and fear that these things are happening," Whittle said. "He kind of goes along with the kind of magic and in real life we wanted to make that more real. So you need to fear a little bit more, maybe you're going crazy and it's not the world that's crazy. And that's his struggle on the first season."
Watch the "American Gods" trailer below:
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