In an interview today on the SCRATCH the SURFACE podcast with EJ Scott, Charlie Cox sat down and talked about Daredevil, Boardwalk Empire, family and learning how-to hack it as a blind man . While the interview wasn’t primarily Daredevil related, there were quite a few pieces of information worth noting. Additionally, Deborah Ann Woll of True Blood fame, who also appears in Daredevil, pops in at the end as well.
On the 2003 Daredevil movie.
I actually didn’t dislike Ben Affleck in it, I felt like tonally the movie was confused and I didn’t feel like Ben Affleck and Colin Farrell were in the same movie. Ironically, I thought that Colin Farrell was closer to what the director was going for. Sometimes he would have en emotional response or a facial expression in a scene that was very representative of a comic panel.
I thought it was fun at times, I just don think to make that movie in that tone suits daredevil, it doesn’t really work for that character and that world.
On influences and reading preparation for the role.
I started with #1, which I really really enjoyed and then the production [crew] sent me stuff that they wanted me to read, that they thought was relevant to what they were writing. So they sent me Daredevil Yellow, they sent me the Man without Fear, obviously.
And then they sent me, it’s called Daredevil Hardcore.
So I read them, and then it became evident to me, and I had seen the first few scripts, so I had an idea tonally of where they were going. So I was flipping around, they gave me a Marvel Unlimited account, so I was going through all of the stuff. And I kind of ended up reading all the Bendis/Maleev stuff and into the Bendis/Mack and End of Days.
On how Daredevil doesn’t really have a cinematic point of view (due to blindness) and a bit on how they will display his powers.
We had to adapt certain things for the purpose of story telling. Like for example, and I’m making this up so there are no spoilers here, there is a scene where I come into the room, and lets say there are guns all over the floor on one side of the room and drugs on the other side of the room. Im just making this up, I promise I’m just making this up. So lets say that’s the scene. I come into the room, and I [Daredevil] can pick up on those things, based on a combination of his senses, smell, gunpowder in the air, taste of cocaine in the air or whatever, he can sense those things. But you can’t tell that story on camera without having a camera move that goes to them. Daredevil wouldn’t need to look in that direction in order to sense those objects, but the camera needs to. So we had to come up with a way where he has to focus on things in order to kind of sense them, and by focusing he kind of cocks his head towards what it is he’s trying to get a sense of, trying to kind of create an image in his mind of what it is, so we can tell that story.
On the pressure of taking on a character like Daredevil
Based on the Netflix platform as well, we don’t have to compete with like, Guardians of the Galaxy makes like 50 billion dollars or whatever it was, we don’t have to compete with that, because there are no financials that are released and Netflix won’t even release ratings.
Additionally, Deborah Ann Woll spoke a bit and revealed that they shot Episode 2 first due to some scheduling overlaps with True Blood. She goes on to mention a rooftop scene (in Episode 2), but then later clarifies that the scene is where Charlie and Deborah first met, not when their characters do. Charlie ended up adding a bit and mentions that it was also the first day he met Vincent D’onofrio and Rosario Dawson, and the later was involved in the rooftop scene.
Finally, 2 other interesting things to note from the interview. The early fake sides (scripts) the actors read when auditioning for the part had used the name Alex Everett rather than Matt Murdock. Charlie mentions he believed this was a nod to Daredevil co-creator Bill Everett. Definitely a cool nod if done purposely. And lastly, apparently Charlie Cox is best friends with Jarvis (James D’arcy). The more you know.
Go check out the podcast for the whole interview, lots of cool stuff in there and definitely worth the listen.
