Netflix’s One Piece is at an exciting stage of its production schedule, providing enticing glimpses not only of season 2, but the latest casting updates for season 3. This has included, among others, the wonderful announcement of Xolo Maridueña being cast as Portgas D. Ace. But murmurs in the fandom have already spoken about one specific casting choice: Alfie Allen.
Alfie Allen, known for Game of Thrones, Jojo Rabbit, The Predator, John Wick, and more, is being held up by the One Piece fandom at the moment for the role of Spandam. It’d certainly be a typecast role based particularly on his work as Iosef Tarasov as well as, to a lesser extent, Theon Greyjoy.
Alfie Allen Would Be Surprisingly Fun as Spandam in Netflix’s One Piece
It’s not a stretch of the imagination to see Alfie Allen playing Spandam, the antagonist largely present for One Piece’s Water 7 and Enies Lobby Arc. The CP9 chief, responsible for covert operations on behalf of the World Government, with his cowardly sense of self-preservation bearing shades of Allen’s other roles.
The plus to Alfie Allen playing Spandam on One Piece, aside from being another excellent opportunity in the vein of David Dastmalchian for Mr. 3 and Katey Sagal for Dr. Kareha, is that it’d not be a wholly shallow typecasting. A comparatively shallow element would be the coincidence that Allen, born in 1986, is 39, the same age as Spandam.
The character of Spandam bears plenty of weight on one future Straw Hats crewmate, Franky, who for reasons revealed later, would give Spandam the injury that would result in his distinctive mask. Many of Allen’s bigger roles end up maimed, killed, or both, but Spandam, being disfigured in the past, is still in one piece (hold for applause).
Fans Would Have to Be Patient Even if Allen Joins One Piece
Given the pacing right now and the overall buildup for season 3 indicating a larger focus on Arabasta, there’s still a whole Jaya/Skypeia Arc go undergo before Water 7 and beyond. It’s an understandable impulse, though: One Piece arguably begins to ramp up its story considerably by Enies Lobby. Getting a Game of Thrones star is a solid hype move.
Plenty of actors have expressed outright interest in joining the show, even if it doesn’t always work out, most famously with Jamie Lee Curtis for the Dr. Kureha role.
But still, it’s a surprisingly apt fan-casting, getting plenty of traction on Reddit. Plenty of actors have expressed outright interest in joining the show, even if it doesn’t always work out, most famously with Jamie Lee Curtis for the Dr. Kureha role. But it’s significantly better than the predictable choices thrown about like Idris Elba, Tom Holland, or Jenna Ortega.
- Release Date
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August 31, 2023
- Network
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Netflix
- Showrunner
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Matt Owens
- Directors
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Tim Southam, Marc Jobst, Josef Kubota Wladyka
- Writers
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Tiffany Greshler, Diego Gutierrez, Allison Weintraub, Lindsay Gelfand
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Iñaki Godoy
Monkey D. Luffy
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