François Chau: Embodying the Shredder in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze

Thirty-five years ago, the sequel to one of the best live-action comic book adaptations of all time was released in theaters. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze brought a brighter, more colorful action fun that was better suited for 90s kids, but even if the violence was dialed down, the return of the Shredder from the dead kept the same level of threat and dread for the Turtles. This time, it was left to François Chau to take up the baton for the villain’s portrayal. You might know the actor from many of your favorite TV shows (Lost, The Expanse, The Penguin to name a few), his antagonistic roles always blending authority, intimidation, and mystery–but the Shredder was a unique opportunity early in his long-standing career. This was Chau’s first and only masked role, and even though his highly recognizable face and voice were not on full display, through his eyes and physicality he was able to bring that commanding and terrifying presence the Shredder is known for.

Chau revealed that he was a fan of Kevin Eastman’s original TMNT comic book run and was quite impressed by how the filmmakers were able to create such a faithful adaptation on the silver screen with the first film. When the audition notice went out for the Shredder (previously played by James Saito), the actor read for the part–and the rest is history.

In The Secret of the Ooze, Shredder is driven by revenge. Everything he does and says is pure venom–and his hate for the Turtles is increasingly raging throughout the film. Chau explained that even though the sequel was meant to be campy and lighthearted, the portrayal of the main villain had to stay grounded: “When you play a villain, the audience, especially the kids, they’re very aware … if something is fake, they spot it right away. A lot of fans come up to me and say, ‘I watched the movie for the first time when I was five years old, and you really scared the sh*t out of me!’ They believed me. I did a good job.” He added, “I don’t try to make a character this way or that way–it’s more like how do I bring myself to the character and make it believable that everything you do is truthful? You’re doing bad things, but you can’t be thinking, you know, ‘I’m doing this because I’m bad!’ Whatever you do has to be logical.”

Delivering both authority and fury through Shredder’s metal helmet and mask was all in the eyes. For François Chau, it was not necessarily a challenge–more a tool to emphasize the villain’s ominous presence and unpredictability. “The camera catches everything. Even if your face is covered, even if you’re behind a mask, if your intentions and your actions are truthful, it’ll come across. All you see is my eyes.” He turned this physical constraint into a powerful acting technique later in his career: “Especially now, I’m older and don’t like to talk a lot. I look at the script and scratch out stuff–I don’t need to do this; I can convey it without saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to kill you.’ I can do it with a look on my face thinking, ‘I want to kill you.’ I like that much better than having to say it out loud. I played a lot of bad guys, and a lot of it is conveying authority and command with your presence, with your eyes, with your stillness.”

The Shredder’s physicality was also crucial to make a statement every time he appeared on screen. The caped and helmeted silhouette had to be both powerful and effortless–like the ghost from the past that he is. “I wanted to come as close as possible to the way a lot of artists portray villains or even superheroes in comic books. Their stance is full of control … even if they’re not tall, they’ll seem very tall in their presence,” Chau said. His portrayal of the iconic villain needed no particular act of violence–just presence.

Nowadays, François Chau is known for his distinct on-screen presence and voice in TV, animation and video games–but for The Secret of the Ooze the Shredder’s dark, controlled timbre, David McCharen was chosen again to dub the villain. “We were a week into the shooting and there was one day where there was a lot of [dialog], so the director said, ‘Hey, don’t go crazy. You should save your voice because it’s going to be dubbed by the guy from the first movie.’ I said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me this at the beginning?! I could have saved my voice.’ At the same time though, as you’re playing the character, you can’t be thinking, ‘Well, I can just speak normally because it’s going to be dubbed.’ No, you have to go through that whole thing, and it could be my voice … maybe they used some of it, maybe they didn’t, I don’t know. I made my voice low or scratchy enough in the way that it was supposed to be. I know that whatever job I did, I didn’t need to have my voice in there to make it any better,” he shared.

Still to this day, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is going strong, with new adaptations and a nostalgia that never faded. Chau admitted that he didn’t realize the impact that the film left on fans until recently when he formed the Turtle Shell-A-Bration, a traveling, pop culture celebration of the franchise with his fellow castmates–Brian Tochi (Leonardo), Kenn Scott (Raphael), Ernie Reyes Jr. (Donatello, Keno), Robbie Rist (Michelangelo), and Judith Hoag (April O’Neil): “It’s like we’re a band going on tour! We’ve become very close friends, which was a thing that we didn’t expect. We’re basically family! It’s just so great to hang out with these guys now when we didn’t thirty-five years ago when we were filming. It’s a pretty amazing thing.” Make sure to find out when they will be at a con near you to get a chance to meet the Shredder himself and your favorite Turtles here!