‘Marvel’s Daredevil’ Cast Talks Darkness

Queue up your next Netflix binge because Marvel’s Daredevil premieres today. The 13-episode show will feel more like a 13-hour long movie. It takes you on a darker side, away from what we’re use to seeing within the Marvel universe. Very different from the different versions of Daredevil that we’ve seen in the past. Not to spoil anything …but prepare yourself for shocking and gruesome moments.

Recently I caught up with the cast and creators for a chat to talk about the series and the characters.

Executive Jeph Loeb discussed the connections between this show and the rest of the Marvel universe. “I get teased a lot because I say, ‘hashtag: it’s all connected.’ I don’t just mean the Marvel Universe is all connected, we’re all connected and very much aware that each story that we tell impacts another story. And this goes back to the days of publishing where if you were writing Spider-Man, it didn’t mean you could just do whatever you wanted. You had to make sure that the villains you were using and the story you were telling were tied to whatever was going on in the larger universe, but by your own token, you could tell your own story”.

Show-runner Steve DeKnight mentions how New York city is also a charachter in the show. “I don’t think the show would have turned out nearly as well if we weren’t shooting in New York. It has a feel that you just cannot get anywhere else. We would get pictures from our location manager, Frank Corvino, and we would just be giddy with joy about these locations that were stunning. Some of them beautiful stunning, some of them stunning in the beauty of the decay that we were looking for that harkens back to the films from the ’70s that we drew a lot of inspiration from, with French Connection and Dog Day Afternoon andTaxi Driver.

Fans who are familiar with Daredevil want to know if Crusher Creel will be the connection for the show and Loeb said “Crusher Creel is a character who has been around for a long time, the Absorbing Man, and I was the first one who decided that in Daredevil Yellow, what if Crusher Creel, before he became the Absorbing Man, was a boxer and he was the one who fought Battling Jack? So, you could have this sort of little wink. So, when we talked about doing one of the fights for Battling Jack, we thought, ‘Let’s put Crusher Creel in that.’ It was really more a wink to Daredevil Yellow than anything else.”

Charlie Cox who plays Daredevil tells us about the research he had to do in order to play his double-life character. “I worked very closely with a blind consultant, a guy called Joe Strechay, who has been legally blind for 20 years. And I spent a lot of time filming him, filming his eyes in conversation. I also worked very closely with all the paraphernalia that comes along with being blind. Having a cane, one’s cane technique… There always needs to be a deadness in the eyes, which is very tricky.”

Rosario Dawson , who plays Claire, Daredevils love interest, mentions how Cox transforms “Just putting on the mask was such amazing, making sure it came down the right way. It always looked super effortless. I also became so sensitive to senses working and watching him. Just that struggle to pretend and how interesting that is. There are so many behaviors and habits that he had to break that are just natural things.”

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