Dean on the Scene for TRR reporting at the last, final day of AwesomeCon 2025. And I got a great interview for all of you out there. Now, if you were growing up in the 1980s, you have seen our next guest on the 1984 comedy “Revenge of the Nerds” and the “Police Academy” series. In the 90s, he’s voiced one of the heroes in the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” trilogy.
Finally, he has the very few distinctions among Star Trek fans. He has been on two
Starship Enterprise bridges in his time – the classic Constitution 1701 design and the Galaxy class 1701-D while yours truly has been on one unfortunately.
Nonetheless, I am thrilled to interview Brian Tochi!
Brian, how you doing today?
I’m really good. How about you, Dean?
I am doing great. Sorry. I outrank you again, like Riker did in the photo that you have.
That’s true. That’s an absolute fact.
So how does it feel to be here at Awesome Con 2025?
It’s great. The people are phenomenal. They’re fun, they’re enthusiastic, and we’re just having the best time ever.
I’m so glad here your part here, because the 35th anniversary of the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie. So how did you get the voice role of Leonardo?
Well, it’s really kind of interesting thing. What happened was, there was a company called Golden Harvest. They had the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies. And what they did is they went to all the all the big studios, and they were turned down. Nobody wanted to do it. So they ultimately went to a smaller company called New Line Cinema, and all they were known for was the Freddy movies. And so they said, “Okay, we’ll do the movie.”
So they put the production team together, put the cast together, and started production. Well, I was not a part of the cast.
What?
No, I know. However, they released the guy who was hired for Leonardo. But then they hired another guy, and they fired him too. I don’t know why. I don’t know who it was, but at the time, it was interesting. I was doing on another project, and somebody said to the production team that “Brian Tochi can be available, do you think he might be interested?”
So they contacted my agents, and they said would probably be interested in doing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie.And when they told me that, I said, “Absolutely not. I will not do a horror film.” So I they said, “no, no, no, no. You don’t understand the Ninja Turtles. It’s these turtles are in the sewers and the ooze falls on them. You have to be these karate badass guys, a little tough, a little surfer bent. You know it’s not a horror thing, slash or whatever.” I said, “You know what? I think I might be able to do that.”
And so, lo and behold, they let me become Leonardo, and they didn’t fire me. And so much so that, thank goodness they they brought me back for the second and the third one. And at the time, I was not aware of the comic books. I was not aware of the cartoon that started really so I had no real kind of barometers what the Ninja Turtles were, until I started it. Then I kind of dug in and kind of found out what they were.
You were the second turtle to said that they did not know the cartoon series, nor the comic book series before taking a role. That’s amazing.
I think that was kind of a good thing because I was able to do my own thing on it. And it kind of worked. I think it did, hopefully. And from that, it was just a surprise when the first opening weekend turned out to be the highest grossing independent film opening in the history of film. Not only that, it was like every weekend was breaking box office records everywhere, and by the end of the entire run of it, the most amazing thing was that it became, at the time, the most successful, the most highest grossing, the just the biggest independent film in the history of film up until that time.
So you really set the standard before My Big Fat Greek Wedding, 10 years later.
Very good. That’s very astute of you, Dean, because the one that broke the record was My Big Fat Greek Wedding. They’re the ones that broke the box office record. What was interesting, though, this is box office back in 1990. So the numbers now, if it were in this day, would be significant higher but, and what made it even more unique is that the box office revenue that came in was from kids. I mean, they’re paying half price. That came in, 34,567 times, you know? And that was what made it kind of extraordinary. It is an extraordinary hit is because, there was just nothing but kids that came in. So if you count bodies coming in to see it, it was even more of a feat.
I had to admit I was one as kids. I think my mom to be there at least three times.
Oh, there you go. And thank you for that, by the way, thank you.
You’re welcome. You’ve been through our franchise throughout the 1980s and so I want to talk a little bit question about “Revenge of the Nerds.” I was a nerd growing up, and still a nerd to this day. I like that you had this great chemistry with Curtis Armstrong, who plays Booger. I want you to talk a little bit about that chemistry in the first film.
Well, first of all, what’s interesting is studios are loath to spend money, but for some reason, they sent the main cast out about two weeks before principal photography, right? They wanted us to bond and to maybe, just rehearse, So we did. We met in Tucson, Arizona, we bonded and rehearsed, and it really worked, because we really all ended up friends. I have to say to this day, we’re now, so we’re like a family but getting Curtis, what was interesting is we hit it off right away, cool. We played, and we had dinner. We went out together, so we got to know each other pretty well.
And so the first day of principal photography, we were in the the gymnasium. We’re all sitting on cots, and the cameras going around doing these intro things, right for everybody, kind of introducing the characters. Curtis and I basically, it’s one of those where it was a quick thing where I go, “why do they call you Booger?” And he’s kind of doing his thing, picking his nose. He goes, “I don’t know.”
But what happened was, while we were waiting for our turn to be up for the shots, the Curtis and I were playing checkers, and then we’re playing cards. And then we started making ourselves laugh. From that the director comes to us and says “by the way, you’re up. Come up with something”. So what we did is we kind of worked out the stuff with the with the poker and we did it on camera for the director, right? He said “Yeah, I like that. Do more of that stuff.” Okay, so what happened was 90 to 95% of the times you see Curtis and I together. And if we’re talking with it amongst each other, we wrote that, we created that. It was never in the script.
And another 40th anniversary, 41st now for that film. Now I gotta talk a little bit about Star Trek, since you went from the original series “And the Children Shall Lead” to “The Next Generation”. So it feels like your character, well, even those two different characters, has grown up. So how did it feel to be on both The Original Series and The Next Gen?
Even though I was a little kid, I remember the first Star Trek. I was on Bill Shatner’s lap, you know? But what was really striking about that particular set is that the set was some kids, you know, it could be, like, at a kid’s, you know, floor, yeah. I mean, the consoles and the stations were basically remedial kind of consoles. And they would have painted wood squares and I know things all on there, like red, blue and green with no lights underneath it. Nothing just kind of shining on.And it was, super, super simple & remedial.
Fast forward to Next Gen, you go on the set and their consoles were computers & lights and holograms and all sorts of stuff that was night and day. It was unbelievable. It was but there’s nothing like the original. You ever like it. The original set, the foundation. And look to this day. Look how many iterations there are of all the starfleets that have gone on beyond you know, everything. It’s amazing.
Until next time, see you…. out there!
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