Tingle Needs To Be In Live-Action The Legend Of Zelda

It’s official: we now know who will play Link and Princess Zelda in Nintendo’s upcoming live-action film adaptation of the iconic series. Perennially fan cast actress Hunter Schafer was nowhere on the cast list, while relative newcomers Benjamin Evan Ainsworth and Bo Bragason took home the top spots. But I’m more interested in who will occupy a spot near the bottom. Who will play Tingle?

The Zelda universe has a vast array of characters who could potentially populate this version of Hyrule. It’s tough to know if Tingle will even make the cut. Director Wes Ball and writers Derek Connolly and T.S. Nowlin need to decide who will play Ganondorf. They have to determine if fan favorites who only appear in one or two games, like Midna, the King of Red Lions, Saria, or Ezlo, will play a part as well. Will the film attempt to retell the story of a specific game — with all the characters that entails — or take a Fallout-style approach and tell a new story in a familiar world?

Though Zelda’s bizarre, cyclical continuity would considerably complicate Fallout’s tactics.

A Brief History Of Tingle

Though this creative team has a lot of source material to sift through, Tingle is the character I’m most hopeful makes the jump to live-action. The rosy-cheeked, green jumpsuited cartographer and map salesman is an odd one. He’s a 35-year-old man, often seen with a red balloon strapped to his back, sometimes there are several of him, and believes he is a reincarnated fairy.

A recurring character who first appeared in Majora’s Mask, Tingle has since popped up in several other entries, including The Wind Waker and Minish Cap. He even had his own spin-off adventure, Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland — though it never made it to North America.

Tingle is a controversial character. Well, at least, he was. How, you ask?

When he showed up in Wind Waker, he was loudly hated by a vocal portion of the fanbase, although this vitriol seems to have dissipated, just like the uproar surrounding cel-shaded visuals – which have aged like fine wine over time. As a result, he’s shown up less and less. He skipped Twilight Princess entirely and, in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, his presence is reduced to an unlockable green leotard. In Skyward Sword, he’s an Easter egg; a doll you may spot on Zelda’s desk.

If Tingle is present in the live-action adaptation, Nintendo will have to walk a fine line. He needs to have enough oddball personality to be recognizable as Tingle, but not so out-there that people hate him all over again. Who can bring that mix of traits to life?

Who Should Play Tingle?

I have some suggestions. In The Green Knight, Barry Keoghan demonstrated that he can embody the key characteristics any actor needs to bring to this role: being a little stinker while bothering a guy on a quest. Bonus points to Keoghan since the movie is called The Green Knight, a moniker that could also describe Link.

If you wanted to cast against type, Keoghan’s Saltburn costar Jacob Elordi could be a solid off-kilter choice. Instead of being small and weird-looking like Tingle, Elordi is 6’5 and impossibly beautiful. Elordi has already played characters so sexy they make otherwise reasonable people go out of their minds in Priscilla and Saltburn, and what better way could you describe Tingle?

Well, there are several better ways, but we must remember this is the curveball choice.

Look: like it or not, Pedro Pascal is the actor of the moment. His romantic dramedy Materialists was a mid-budget hit, he’s great as Joaquin Phoenix’s foil in Eddington, and he’s the lead of what looks to be the summer’s biggest superhero movie with The Fantastic Four: First Steps. If you can get Pascal to play your Tingle, you take that opportunity. Plus, I just kinda think he looks like him.

Alan Cumming also gets in through the “he kinda looks like him” rule. On the other hand, at 5’6″ Spike Lee is the right height to pull Tingle off if he decides to take on a rare acting role. And Willem Dafoe has the right manic intensity.

As much as I like these ideas, it’s important to acknowledge that the right of first refusal for all video game movie roles goes to… Jack Black. He is Tingle by default until we see a full cast list.