Don Cheadle talks about how he almost got up and left his CAPTAIN PLANET parody video at Funny Or Die

Over a decade ago, fans got to see the Oscar-nominated and stoic MCU actor Don Cheadle rock blue face makeup and a green mullet in a Funny or Die video where he played a version of Captain Planet who was a little off his rocker. He showed up to help a group of kids who saw some bad guys felling trees, and they think it’s cool when he starts turning bad guys into trees, but when he’s a little power hungry and starts turning dogs, kids and other innocent bystanders in the shrubbery, the children are horrified, and Captain Planet goes one step further! It’s a totally hilarious and ridiculous short film, but it almost didn’t happen.

In a recent video interview on GQ’s trademark “Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters” (via CB), Cheadle was asked about the parody and said it happened while he was filming another video for Funny or Die which he conceived while filming one of Of the ocean movie. While waiting to shoot, the Captain Planet sketch came up and Cheadle agreed to be in it until he saw a photo of what the animated character looks like.

“So, I sat in the makeup chair and they started coming up with this blue face paint. I was like, ‘What is this?’ I’m like, ‘Well, it’s Captain Planet.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t want to do this.’ And they’re like, ‘Well, that’s what Captain Planet looks like.’ And they showed me his picture. I was like, ‘That’s ridiculous. I don’t want to do this.’ I was about to leave and I don’t know how they convinced me to do it. Someone convinced me to do it. So I did it and I immediately regretted it after I did it. But then I saw it and it made me laugh so I thought that he was kind of funny, and now it’s ridiculous how many people are talking about that character.”

He went on to add:

“I mean, they were just like, ‘What’s the craziest thing, how can we end this the craziest way we can?’ So let’s be like the good guy, and be the guy who would be your hero on Saturday, but it’s messed up in his head.That Captain Planet was very messed up, clearly.

You can watch the original sketch below.