Breath of the Wild launched alongside the Switch 1 back in 2017. That was how many years ago? Three? Four? Surely no more than five? As it turns out, it was quite a bit longer than that, as the live-action Zelda movie star, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, has so kindly reminded us.
Ainsworth recently spoke to GamesRadar about his role in the latest season of HBO’s House of the Dragon, and while most of the chat was restricted to all things Game of Thrones, there was a little Zelda discussion thrown in there too.
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“I can’t speak too much on the film itself,” he told the outlet, “but I remember vividly when Breath of the Wild came out – and it might show my age – but I remember being quite young at the time when it came out, and so I didn’t have a Switch at the time”. Gulp.
It’s not as if Ainsworth was completely divorced from the launch — “I was watching gamers play it, and watching playthroughs, essentially,” he clarified — but the 2008-born actor was only a young’un at the time, so it makes sense that he might not have been on it immediately. Now he’s grown enough to be leading Nintendo’s first live-action adaptation in yonks, and we feel very, very old in the process.
He’s done his research since, of course. “Upon being fortunate enough to play this role,” he continued, “such an iconic character, going back and realising the 40 years of legacy and history, and the varied tones, the varied stories, the varied renditions and vocal performances of this character as well”.
“Yeah, I’m a big fan, and just really excited, because it was an awesome thing to shoot. New Zealand is a wonderful place. But yeah, can’t say too much more.”
Keeping the details to a minimum, eh? We respect it. We still know very little about the live-action movie itself. Ainsworth will star alongside Bo Bragason as Princess Zelda, and it recently received a new worldwide release date of 30th April 2027 after wrapping filming earlier this year. That’s about it.
Here’s hoping that the next few months bring us some more details, eh? Maybe once we recover from the realisation that it’s almost been a decade since BOTW launched…
