We Talk To Daredevil Himself: Charlie Cox About His New Hit Series

Claudia- Janet Kaller was kind enough to send over this awesome article for us.

The really good news is, Netflix’ and Marvel’s promise that their DAREDEVIL TV series would be different to the 2003 movie became true.

Now they are out, all 13 episodes at once available to all Netflix subscribers around the World. The individually dubbed versions followed couple of days later, Netflix’ attempt to grab a big chunk of the new worldwide TV culture continues.

DAREDEVIL is the first of Marvel’s four Defender Series Comic deal with Netflix and underlines that the wildly successful Marvel Universe is continuing to expand to the small screen too.

On DAREDEVIL the viewers and fans of the comic book will hopefully enjoy the trip to the dark, violent and grim daily survival in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen.

We had the chance to interview Charlie Cox who plays Matt Murdock alias DAREDEVIL.

The overall concept of this series is so crazy dark than any other popular Marvel TV show on air if I get it right?

CC: You mean tonally or visually?

Both, very true to the comic books and today’s New York…

CC: Yes, I think that is exactly the case. And was what we all wanted to do right from the start. The DD comics were always darker, more realistic and developed for older readers. So it was only logical to follow that original path with the new TV series. The producers knew that DD would be for Netflix and made for an older audience, so they could show some things more explicitly than on other networks. And I personally think that also works very well for this character of Matthew ‘Matt’ Murdock.

And you start with a black costume in the first episode?

CC: Yes, obviously that one particular dark look from was picked for the look of DD based on the Frank Miller’s “Daredevil: Man without Fear” for the pilot of the series to give the audience something to identify with. The same was chosen about the look and sound of this famous New York district called Hell’s Kitchen. Familiar landmarks were filmed to underline were this show takes place. I guess that was especially for the international market and for those who might not know DD so well.

You are from Britain, so I guess you did not grow up on Marvel comics. How did you prepare for playing Matt Murdock?

CC: To be prepared and get into the character I have read the first 20 of the DD comics starting from 1964 onwards. But after getting the first scripts bits I realized that our show would be totally different, as so much has changed since then. So I skipped reading the old comic books and started again with those starting 1998 onwards because I felt that suited the scripts I got and was more like what we were about to shoot.

Were you forced to avoid the 2003 movie?

CC: It might sound funny, but I hadn’t seen the movie, but I have heard about it. Good and bad things. So I wasn’t sure whether it would help if I see it or not. But people had such great and fundamental opinions about it, so I thought maybe it would be fun to watch it after all to learn what it was about. In my opinion Ben Affleck did a good job but there were quite a couple of inconsistencies in the plot which bothered me slightly. And without being unkind, I think tonally the whole story was a little confused. You know the storyline of Daredevil versus Bullseye were almost like two different movies.

Where you afraid because the movie failed?

CC: No, it was very evident as soon as I had put that DVD on that we were planning to do something completely different. We of course have the benefit of 13 hours in total to tell our story, so we have much more time and could start our storyline from the early beginning. We get the time to get back to DD’s origins and how it all started for him.

What fascinated you about this Matt Murdock and his dark secret?

CC: When they had considered me for the role, I had a Skype session with the producers. We all agreed that DD is one of the few Marvel characters when it comes to authenticity and being more realistic. Matt Murdock is blind because of an accident and has to live without being able to see. This total weakness becomes his strengths as his other senses become stronger and enable him to live this secret hero life at night. I think one can say DD’s superpowers are much more human in a certain way as he is also very vulnerable because he does not have super-super-powers like most of the other Marvel universe heroes do. Even his training or fight styles are much more realistic than those of other heroes. And he can get hurt; he has bruises and injuries that most people connect to his real life blindness.

As an actor where do you find such a character?

CC: Well, because we have so much more time to explore the originals, we spend almost the whole first season on the evolution of that DD character and his alter-ego the lawyer Matt Murdock. So the more Matt is involved in all these different layers of the criminal world he is now connected to, the more we get to know him and his friends and villains on the show. In some way that is like real New York, there is so much more under the polished surface of the Big Apple and that is something we like to explore and show on our series.

Presuming that you cannot go to a blind school like that and research the character because you have to prepare for an acting job, how did you learned the skills?

CC: You know I think I am still discovering it. It is still discovering it; it is a work-in-progress thing for me. Like I said I read a ton of DD comics to learn what Matt Murdock is doing in them. And I have to admit, they are quite accurate when it comes to the daily problems Matt is facing, they have always been. So Marvel did quite a big job and supporting blind people in creating such a hero. I have worked a lot with a blind consultant and read about blind people studying and what problems they have and had.

How difficult is it for you to work with that “blind” look you have to have on some scenes?

CC: Yeah, sometimes it is easy, sometimes it is tricky. As I have said, I work a lot with a blind consultant to give my performance a realistic approach. What I figure out was when he looks at me his eyes engage and he has told me, he did that on purpose. He has been blind for 20 years now. Literally he activates the muscles although he does not see anything, but when he does that people tend to be more engaged with him. But he is not looking at you, he cannot catch your eyes, his eyes are nearer the mouth, nearer the sound, so he is off centre. So I thought great that is something I can learn. But on camera that does not always look good or fits into the scene, on camera work is visual and works differently. So we went back to the comics to see how they did it. And the reason you know that Matt Murdock is blind is because all know that he is blind and the other characters talk about his blindness. Lucky me they did not wanted to do any contacts, and I think that is cool because most blind people do not have washed out eyes.

And you wear shades too?

CC: Yes, he wears and has his stick which benefits to portray this character. Of cause I, Charlie, still know a lot of things over which DD would easily pick up because he sees with his whole body. For him the other senses have become like a 3D radar kind of sense after the accident.

What about the fight sequences how is the choreography?

CC: Oh, I love that stuff! That is totally me! All of the physicality they let me do, I do! I will do anything and surprisingly they let me do quite a lot. And the great thing about DD is that the show is grounded on reality, so the stunt team takes the script and write their choreography based individually on that. So what I do is learn little pieces of those choreographies and get familiar with the little pieces. But when you do the big wide shots I normally had not time to learn the whole thing for a wide so one of the stunt guys does it. But when we do the close ups I do all of them on my own.

The more episodes one sees, the more the ultimate villain of DD is introduced to the viewers. This Wilson Fisk [also know as “Kingping”] is played by Vincent D’Onofrio how is that?

CC: Well, working opposite of him requires little acting. He is quite an imitating guy. He is a big guy. You know he is a real actor if you have seen any of his work, he takes work very seriously. Luckily he happens to be one of the nicest and loveliest human being to be around. Still it is not very difficult to be intimidated by him and act on that. There are a few characters in cinema history lately that really terrified me. One is Sir Ben Kingsley on SEXY BEAST and Vincent D’Onofrio on some films. – When we went to Comic Con he described Wilson Fisk as a child and a monster and I think he is right about that. Obviously he enjoys playing that character a lot.