Whenever some major director criticizes the Marvelization of the film industry, inevitably Marvel-affilated actors come out of the woodwork to publicly defend a soulless corporation’s honor and argue that, actually, Marvel movies are amazing and Disney is the happiest place in the world. Meanwhile, whenever Marvel actors are given free rein to speak about their experiences working on Marvel movies, they’re always like “god, it was horrible, it was the biggest pain in the ass, I hate green screens, it’s not real acting, the process sucks.” So here we are! Sir Anthony Hopkins appeared in the Thor franchise as King Odin and he was recently asked about the experience. He has two Best Actor Oscars and not a lot of patience for this Marvel bullsh-t. Hopkins’ comments appeared in the New Yorker’s piece, “How the Marvel Cinematic Universe Swallowed Hollywood,” which is an interesting (and overwrought) read. These are the parts I wanted to discuss:
It can be dispiriting to see so much acting talent sucked into the quantum realm of the M.C.U., presumably for a tidy sum, but the paychecks alone don’t explain Marvel’s hold over stars. “At some point, you want to be relevant,” an agent who represents several M.C.U. actors said. “Success is the best drug.” This year, Angela Bassett became the first actor to be nominated for an Oscar for a Marvel role, in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” “Well, it’s so modern,” she told me in February. “We try and stay current, and they’ve got a winning formula.”
Entire generations now know Anthony Hopkins not as Hannibal Lecter but as Thor’s dad, King Odin of Asgard. “They put me in armor; they shoved a beard on me,” he told me. “Sit on the throne, shout a bit. If you’re sitting in front of a green screen, it’s pointless acting it.”
The result is a lot of hand-wringing over “the death of the movie star.” In an I.P.-driven ecosystem, individual stars no longer attract audiences to theatres the way they used to, with a handful of exceptions (Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts). You go to a Marvel movie to see Captain America, not Chris Evans. “It’s actually surprising to me how almost none of them have careers outside of the Marvel universe,” another agent said. “The movies don’t work. Look at all the ones Robert Downey, Jr., has tried to do. Look at Tom Holland. It’s been bomb after bomb after bomb.”
Thirty-odd films later, Marvel’s critics (and even some fans) groan at the formula. There’s the climactic C.G.I. slugfest, often pitting a good iron man against a bad iron man, or a good dragon against a bad dragon, or a good witch against a bad witch. There’s the self-referential shtick, the interchangeable villains. There are presumed-dead characters who reappear, as on a soap opera. Most plots boil down to “Keep glowy thing away from bad guy,” and the stakes are nothing less than the fate of the world, which come to feel like no stakes at all.
[From The New Yorker]
Hopkins was basically the only actor who went on the record for the New Yorker, but I’ve read enough interviews with Marvel actors to know that he’s not alone. Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Christian Bale, Robert Downey Jr., Elizabeth Olsen, they’ve all admitted (in so many words) that the MCU is pretty soulless and tedious as an acting gig. The point of the New Yorker’s piece wasn’t even like “the MCU is terrible, we should hate everything about it.” No one is saying that – we’re questioning the sustainability of the business model and what the MCU’s dominance means for Hollywood and filmmaking writ large. We’re also questioning why so many actors do these movies, honestly.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Instar and Marvel.
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