He is most known for his lead roles in the Academy Award®-nominated film “Zero Dark Thirty” and the hit sci-fi sequel “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.” Now, Australian actor Jason Clarke returns to the big screen to re-invent the iconic character, John Connor, in Paramount Pictures’ new action-thriller “Terminator Genisys.”
In the film, when John Connor, leader of the human resistance, sends Sgt. Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back to 1984 to protect Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) and safeguard the future, an unexpected turn of events creates a fractured timeline. Now, Sgt. Reese finds himself in a new and unfamiliar version of the past, where he is faced with unlikely allies, including a new T-800 terminator, the Guardian (Arnold Schwarzenegger), dangerous new enemies, and an unexpected new mission: To reset the future…
Casting the part of John Connor—particularly for this John Connor, whose character runs the gamut from messianic to maniacal—was an acknowledged challenge among filmmakers. Producer Dana Goldberg begins, “We knew John Connor was going to be one of the hardest roles to cast, because he has to be charismatic—here’s the guy people who have no hope choose to be their hope. These are people who’ve had everything taken away from them, and yet, when this man stands up and says that it’s time to fight, they’ll go to the ends of the earth for him.”
Producer David Ellison continues, “The thing about John Connor is he’s tortured. For some, he’s a prophet, but he says in our movie that he cheats, that his mother raised him and told him everything that was going to happen. That’s a huge burden, and something we’ve found fascinating about John Connor’s character—he will lead all of these people and, in reality, he knows that a great deal of them are going to die.”
