Zelda Williams on growing up with Legend of Zelda, favorite entry, interest in focusing on Zelda as a character

A portion of a HollywoodReporter interview with Zelda Williams...

HR: Was Zelda a big part of your life growing up?

ZW: Sure, I mean it’s not like especially once you beat I keep playing it, so whenever a new game would come out, of course, but that’s also a lot of the games in our house. Once it was a new toy, we played it to death for like a week and then you beat it and then on to the next thing.

HR: Do you have a favorite in the series?

ZW: Yeah, I’ve always stood by Majora’s Mask. There’s plenty of people who love it, but it’s not the most popular one for people to say. I just really liked collecting the masks. (Laughs.) I’m kind of a completionist like that, I’m one of those who usually beat a game without doing all the side quests, but I preferred doing all the side quests in Majora’s Mask. Little minor neurosis of mine, but it’s fun. (Laughs.)

HR: There have been talks for decades of making a film adaptation of the Zelda games. Is that anything you’d be interested in?

ZW: I mean, it’s the same way that people have continued to treat me right now and say that they wanted me to voice Zelda in the game. I don’t know how meta Nintendo would actually want to go. I love working with them in the sense that they send me the games and I get to be nerdy and tweet about them every once in a while, but it might be a little on the nose. I know they’ve had it in development at Netflix and places like that, but it’s a very difficult thing to adapt because essentially an enormous amount of what was so great about it for people was that they got to inhabit and interpret Link the way that they wanted to because he didn’t speak. He still doesn’t. He never has dialogue, and I don’t know how you’re going to have a lead character who doesn’t have a voice. As a writer, that’s a fascinating challenge. I’ve never seen a movie where the lead of a fantasy epic is mute, but I don’t know if my version of, “Wow, that seems like it would be a fun, difficult script to write” equals “This should be a television show or a movie.” I have no idea.

HR: Have you ever thought about writing a Zelda script or working on the games?

ZW: Again, I don’t even know how I would approach them or vice versa. For the most part, my writing is almost separate entirely from acting right now. Will it cross paths? Yeah, soon. But I don’t know. In the same way that people go, “You should be Princess Zelda in the game or whatever adaptation,” and I go, "I’ll get right on that." I’m not sure how much power I have in this circumstance. It’s a bit like someone saying, you love Lord of the Rings, you should write the movie. (Laughs.) Sure, I would love to, but I don’t think in any realm of reality that would happen just because I’m named after it.

HR: Do you think we’ll ever see a game or an adaptation that focuses more on Zelda than on Link?

ZW: There’s something to be said for, I don’t know if they’d ever have a whole Princess Zelda game because rescuing her, or certainly saving the world with her, has been the focus most of the time. I mean, there’s been games that have switched it up a bit. I don’t know. I honestly can’t tell you. I think it would be great. They’ve approached differences in narrative on a bunch of the games, and even stylization. Some of the games have been completely different in style. They experiment with the franchise. I just don’t know how far they’ll go. Plus, people have been waiting for this game for years, so I’m sure there won’t be another one for quite some time. They don’t do what Xbox and Playstation do and just sort of pick up a game and release it very quickly and then immediately try to do a sequel even if they haven’t really developed it that well. Nintendo is kind of fond of, especially with these tentpole franchises, taking their time.