The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen returns to our screens next week with the imminent arrival of Daredevil: Born Again.
As a huge Daredevil fan myself, I’ve been waiting years for this so, of course, I jumped at the chance to speak to Matt Murdock himself, Charlie Cox, to talk about the show and what we can expect when it arrives on Disney+ on 5 March (UK).
See the gritty, epic trailer for Daredevil: Born Again below.
Kicking things off with a simple question, I was eager to discover how it felt to come back for Daredevil: Born Again. Matt Murdock has been in the MCU for a little while now, thanks to cameos in Spider-Man: No Way Home and She-Hulk, but Born Again just felt like it might hit different for the actor.
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“Yeah. I mean, it's funny, being back was a long time ago now for me, really,” Charlie explained. “I first heard about potentially, kind of, coming back and doing some stuff for Marvel in 2020 so, you know, four and a half years ago. But it's still a little bit surreal. I'm still kind of pinching myself a little bit. I really never thought that that was going to happen.”
Charlie went to explain what it was like seeing his old castmates again, saying, “There's been a lot of very, very touching moments since then, being on set for the first time, being in a scene with Vincent [D'Onofrio] again, being in a scene with Deborah [Ann Woll] and Elden [Henson] again, putting the suit on, all of that kind of stuff. It's kind of bonkers to think that we are, you know, 10 years in - more than 10 years in now - but also kind of starting again. So it will be fascinating to know how long this could last.”
From this, I was keen to know if that long break between shows had changed anything. Daredevil: Born Again may be a continuation of the Netflix series but times have inevitably changed.
“Yes and no,” said Charlie, “I mean, elements of it, obviously, were very natural and very easy. And some of it kind of was a little jarring. You know, trying to remember the way the story goes, and because enough time has passed, it was important to us that we weren't just doing the same thing. The circumstances have maybe changed, life's moved on, and maybe as a result of that, these characters, particularly Matt, they are slightly different people, in the same way that we're all slightly different people.”
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I was also curious about what it felt like for Charlie to get back into the mental, but also physical, headspace of Matt Murdock. Watching Daredevil for the first time, without knowing who Charlie Cox is, you might have almost believed he was a blind actor; the performance was just that good. I remember hearing of interviews where he confessed to struggling to keep eye contact with people outside of filming, purely from getting used to acting like he couldn’t see.
So many years later though, it all came back fairly naturally, as Charlie said, “It was quite seamless for the most part. I think when you're getting ready to do it, there's always a kind of anxiety about ‘Are you getting it right? Are you striking the balance between what worked before, and what's different?’ because it's important to reinvent some things.”
He continued, “You never quite know, and I still don't know. You won't know until the show has been released, and people have had their opinions about it. But for the most part, it was pretty seamless, yeah.”
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To address the elephant in the room, as Daredevil becomes a more prominent character in the MCU, you’ve got to consider what a different playground he’s in now that he’s officially part of the canon. I asked Charlie what his thoughts were on coming back to something far more cosmic than what he left when the Netflix series was cancelled.
“It's exciting,” he began. “It feels nice to not feel like a step-child and, you know, obviously, the hope is that we can continue. I did a couple of cameos, with She-Hulk and Spider-Man and Echo - and Vincent the same - so it would be really cool for that to continue, and for us to maybe pop up here and there. At heart, I'm also a fan as well so, you know, the idea of being able to interact with some of these iconic characters in the MCU is kind of a dream. The fact that that door is now at least ajar is very exciting.”
With that in mind, I had to ask if there were any dream team-ups he’d like to be part of, and the answer was one I think just about every Marvel fan wants to see on the big-screen someday.
“You know, just because of the history of the comics, it would be great to get a little bit of time with Peter Parker in our alter egos,” Charlie confessed. “Obviously, we had Matt Murdock and Peter Parker, but it'd be cool to have a little moment with Spider-Man and Daredevil doing something where they team-up. So that's an obvious one and yeah, of course, there are a few more, but who knows?”
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I did also ask if Charlie had any headcanon on what Daredevil was up to during the blip, as his cameo in Echo proves he wasn’t dusted like so many others.
Unfortunately, a concrete answer wasn’t on the cards for that: “I definitely can't, just because I would hate it if the powers that be [Marvel Studios] have a very different idea, so I will patiently wait to be told, hopefully one day.”
Marvel fans may remember that Daredevil: Born Again was supposed to release a lot sooner, but was put on hold during the writer’s strike and eventually rewritten and reshuffled following some creative changes. It’s said Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio were very passionate about keeping the show as faithful to the Netflix series as feasibly possible.
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On this Charlie said, “Yes, to some extent. I mean Marvel has always been very collaborative. They've always been very open to any thoughts or suggestions that I've had, or Vincent has had. I wouldn't want to, for a second, give the impression that we were fighting a battle and eventually we won, or anything like that. I think that we started down a route and we were all on the same page. It was a really interesting idea that was kind of radically different from what we've done and the deeper we got into it, the more it was kind of clear that maybe it wasn't quite working in the way that we had hoped and thought it would.”
He continued, “But to Marvel's credit, they were able to look at that during the strike and say, ‘Actually, maybe we've got an opportunity to kind of rethink this a little bit and change course slightly’.”
Charlie went on to add: “I think one of the amazing things about being part of Marvel Studios now is that they have the resources to do that, [to know] when to correct something that isn't quite right. And I've obviously done a lot of TV shows and films that are not able to do that. You know, if things aren't working, you kind of have to see it through and hope for the best. So, yeah, huge credit to my bosses at Marvel and to the whole team there for being willing to kind of see something that wasn't quite working and take the necessary action to make, hopefully, what are really good changes; certainly changes I think were really brilliant and valid and needed.”
While Daredevil: Born Again may be going in a slightly different direction to the Netflix series, fear not, as Charlie did confirm with a resounding “yes” that we’ll be getting another one-take action segment, happy days.
Comic fans will also be pleased to hear the creative team have been dipping into some more of the comic storylines, some of which were seen in the show’s trailer.
“We've got some characters and some story lines that are inspired by some of the comic runs. They're not necessarily recent but, for example, we have the White Tiger appear in our series, as does a character by the name of Muse, who was a David Mack invention, so a couple of characters from what I would argue to be one of the Golden Eras of Daredevil comics, so that's really fun,” Charlie explained.
“Those are comics that I read way back when, you know, when I first got the job. I was very quickly onto all of the Bendis stuff and David Mack stuff and so on. So it's really fun now, almost 10 years later, to be welcoming those characters into our universe, and to get to play with them, as it were, brilliant.”
And finally, I did acquire an exciting tidbit for video game fans. Charlie Cox will star in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 later this year, launching on 24 April for Xbox, PlayStation and PC platforms. When I asked if he’d be up for a Daredevil video game role, the actor said, “Yeah, of course. It’d be awesome, an easy yes. I'm not a gamer myself, but I was with my nephew over Christmas, and he was telling me that there's a Daredevil skin in Fortnite, which sounded pretty cool.”
It was a real career highlight of mine to be able to speak with Charlie Cox about Daredevil, and I couldn’t be more excited to see what Marvel Studios and the cast have cooked for Daredevil: Born Again, premiering on Disney+ on 5 March in the UK.
Topics: Interview, Marvel, TV And Film, Comics