William Fichtner is playing Shredder in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

It's been suspected for some time, but William Fichtner has gone ahead and confirmed that he's playing Shredder in the forthcoming reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles .

The ever-reliable actor admitted the villain role during an interview with Huffington Post Canada .

"I play Shredder," Fichtner told them. "It is cool. It's one of those things that came along where I thought, "Really? Let me think about this for a minute." [ Laughs ] Then I was like, "Yeah, OK, this sounds like a journey." I'm very glad that it worked out, I'm really glad that I'm doing it."

Fichtner is always good value, so we're chuffed to see him occupying the chief villain role. He stars alongside Megan Fox, who's playing news reporter April O'Neil, and Will Arnett, who's co-starring as her hapless cameraman, Vernon Fenwick.

Shredder is a ninjitsu master, who wears a badass helmet and has arms smothered in blades. The character is traditionally Japanese, and is a rival to the Turtles' mentor, Splinter.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is set to open in the UK on 16 May 2014, with a US release following on 6 June 2014.

Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.