“I wanna see Shamon drop,” exclaimed Michael Abbey, one of the stars of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. He’s referring to his co-star Shamon Brown Jr., who voices Michelangelo in the new animated film.

Note: This interview was conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike. 

It’s evident from the start that this group of turtles made up of Abbey, Brown Jr., Brady Noon, and Nicolas Cantu is a close-knit group. They’re joking around, poking fun, and sharing more laughs in a four-minute interview than I’ve ever seen.

Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
A still from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem courtesy of Paramount.

But for as great as their rapport is off-screen, it’s equally important that their rapport translates on-screen when they voice their iconic turtles.

Perhaps this chemistry was aided by the fact that director Jeff Rowe and producer (and star) Seth Rogen were adamant that the cast recorded their lines together in the studio as Noon revealed.

“Yeah, for [a] majority of the time, we were together. It was an ensemble,” Noon revealed.

“Seth and Jeff found that the way that we get the most authentic improv and that ‘brotherly love’ was when we are in-person, actually arguing with one another,” he said with a chuckle. “So we found out pretty early on that ensemble was the way that we were gonna go.”

But what outside of the studio? These ninja turtles hang out quite a bit it appears.

“We’ve been trying to plan a dinner after recording, but everyone’s had different schedules,” Abbey revealed. “But we definitely hang out off-camera.”

He added that he and Nicolas went to go see Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City the other day. Cantu added that it was “so, so good,” and Abbey called it “awesome.”

While some co-stars grab dinner, go mini-golfing, or do an escape room together, Cantu had another idea for a group activity: Skating.

“I would love to take y’all to a skate park just to see what happens — that would be so funny,” he said with a wide grin.
All four of them laughed as Cantu added his reasoning for taking his turtle co-stars skating: “The turtles skate, I think it would be good to see where everybody’s at with their skateboarding abilities. I think that would be fun.”

That’s when Abbey added in his line that he wanted to see Brown Jr. “drop.” He later clarified that he just wants to “see Shamon skate.”

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem will be released on August 2.