One of the gems that has made the Netflix corner of the Marvel Universe so special is Charlie Cox’s portrayal of Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil. The actor, who was relatively unknown at the time of his casting, made an instant impact on audiences during the first season of that character’s series. His commitment to the tricky role of a blind lawyer who defends innocent people by day and fights evil by night was evident as he excelled at both the emotionally vulnerable and physically demanding aspects of the performance.
Cox is riding high on the success of Daredevil, which had its second season earlier this year, and is now prepping to reprise the role in the epic crossover event The Defenders. In a chat with Screen Geek, the actor revealed where he’d love to go next, when Daredevil goes back to fighting crime all by his lonesome.
The actor wants the Daredevil showrunners to bring in one of the character’s most well-known rogues, Bullseye. “It’s no secret, I’ve said it before and I get in trouble every time I say it, I’d like to see Bullseye make an appearance at some point,” Cox said. “I think it’s a really interesting opportunity.“
Of course, not everyone would be pleased with that decision, and Cox knows that. In the comics, two of the key figures in the Daredevil mythos meet their maker at the hands of Bullseye. “Deborah Ann Woll obviously does not want Bullseye to show up for obvious reasons. Elodie Yung, who plays Elektra, doesn’t want Bullseye to show up either,” Cox conceded.
Of course, that shouldn’t preclude the producers from bringing Bullseye in. He’s an seminal Daredevil villain, and they can always just not follow the comics. It’s not like it’d be the first time that’s happened.
But now, if we may circle back to Cox’s commitment to the role, the actor also revealed how it was that he planned to make Murdock’s blindness feel real: By actually making himself blind.
“I don’t know if you know this [or not] but on the first season, I was trying to figure out how to do it. I went to this specialist, an opticianist [sic]– and I had these lenses made that were identical to my eyes but they completely blinded me,” Cox revealed during his interview with Screen Geek at Wizard World in Pittsburgh. “You put them in and I couldn’t see a thing and I thought great, I’ll do that and I don’t have to do any acting. The problem with that was that after every take, someone from the crew had to come and get me and lead me away and kind of sit me down. After the second day, I was like this is going to get really old, really quick.“
So it doesn’t sound he stuck with that approach, but it was a novel idea, for sure.
If you’ll humor me for a second, Cox’s attempt to nail Murdock’s blindness reminds me of an experience I had as an actor playing a blind man. I was doing a production of Butterflies Are Free, and I knew I’d more or less nailed the physicality of it after a lot of at-home research. I knew how to look blind, but I wanted to learn what it was like to be blind; To experience how the outside world treats blind people. So I went to midtown, I busted out one of those collapsible walking sticks, and I began making my way around the city.
Instantly, people began getting out of my way; Whispering to their friends to be mindful of me; And, during my three mile walk to the upper west side, no fewer than four people took my arm and helped me cross the street. That day I learned about the kind of sympathy and empathy the people of New York had for someone who was blind, and since the play took place in NY, it helped put me in the character’s shoes- because he had a chip on his shoulder about how he disliked people’s pity.
Oh, and one really funny bit? Within my first five minutes of doing this exercise, a teenager asked me for directions without realizing I was “blind.” Since he figured I couldn’t see him, the second he noticed he’d just asked a blind man for directions his eyes popped out and he covered his mouth like, “Holy shit, what did I just do?” It was hard to keep a straight face, but I gave him directions using my knowledge of North/South/East/West in the beautiful grid that is Manhattan. You just know he went to a friend of his and said, “I got directions from a blind guy today!“
Anyway, thanks for humoring my little tangent here.
Cox is a great actor, and it’s always a pleasure to hear and see what the Daredevil star is excited about for the show.
Do you want to see Bullseye on Daredevil?
SOURCE: Comic Book Movie
