One Piece Director Reveals Who Was The Toughest Character to Cast

Now that One Piece is effortlessly taking number one spots on pretty much every ranks of live-action adaptations, it's only natural for us to just appreciate the show's impeccable casting. Still, looking back, director Marc Jobst has a lot to say about the casting process.

One Piece fans are praising the choice of actors for practically every role, but it's safe to say that the most important character to get right was Monkey D. Luffy. The part eventually went to Iñaki Godoy, who absolutely nailed it.

However, according to Jobst, he was the hardest character to cast — for an understandable reason.

"Luffy is the hardest character to cast, because he carries the whole show, and he is the driver of positivity," Jobst told Screen Rant. "He believes in having dreams, he believes in believing in yourself, he inspires people to be themselves, to be more of themselves, he wants to help them become more of themselves."

But how did Godoy manage to enchant the creative team? By being pretty much a lot like his character, as it turns out.

Jobst recalled how the actor would do "something crazy, and off-script, very deliberately," making everyone go "'Oh, okay, he's got some cheek and some charm, and some chutzpah to him.'"

The director acknowledges that this constant positivity that Luffy has can be quite irritating in protagonists, but with Godoy's performance, One Piece was spared from it. Luffy is never annoying; in fact, his cheeky and optimistic demeanor is so organic you immediately want to smile back.

Even Eiichiro Oda, the creator of One Piece manga series, admitted that Gogoy was "born" to play Luffy, and when the father of the series points something like that out, it's safe to say that the toughest challenge is gracefully handled.

You can go see for yourself by streaming the first season of One Piece on Netflix. The network is yet to announce if the pirate adventure is renewed for season 2.

Source: Screen Rant