O-T fa*gbenle On Playing Obama In The First Lady, His Possible Future With Marvel & More [Interview] - SlashFilm (2024)

So another thing I find interesting looking over your career is that you've done what I guess would be considered a lot of prestige TV. But then you also more recently dipped your toes into the world of gigantic blockbuster filmmaking with "Black Widow." So what, as an actor, is the biggest difference between going from something like "The Handmaid's Tale" to doing "Black Widow?"

That's an interesting question. The thing is, "Black Widow" was directed by Cate Shortland, and Cate is an indie film director extraordinaire. Indie movies are so tense, they're so intimate. In a weird way, although Cate had all the toys of a Marvel movie, it was a Cate Shortland movie. So it felt grounded and felt connected to real people. So actually there was, in some weird ways, more in common than different.

Getting a little more specific, you play Mason, and you find out he's one of Black Widow's go-to guys. I've been a comic book nerd in my whole life, and what I found interesting about that is, you see how much of Mason you see in the movie, but it's very clear that this is a guy that has a much bigger contact list in his phone. He's doing this for a lot more people in a lot more places than we see. Have you had any conversations or thought about is there any chance for Mason to pop back up in further movies or TV shows? Or was this really just discussed as a one-and-done thing?

I mean, you know what, with Marvel, I'm never sure how much I can say about stuff, but I'll just say that it wasn't a one-and-done conversation.

How much did you actually research the source material? Or did you just go, "No, I need to be loyal to what the guy is on the page?"

Yeah. I mean, to be honest, I did start to do all of that. I had conversations with Eric [Pearson], who wrote "Black Widow," who become a friend of mine, he's a genius and a beautiful person. In our conversations, in some ways I feel like this incarnation of Mason is an Eric creation ... so although I did have a little peek at the original, I very soon just became focused on what Eric created for "Black Widow."

You sometimes see people complain that the adaptation wasn't exactly faithful to the comics, but changes are necessary when you adapt things for another medium. I also think, what fun is it if it is exactly what you already know? There's something nice about the idea of, "Oh, it's another medium and we can do something a little different."

Absolutely. I mean, and also, it's just interesting, even if you take — I mean, it's DC of course, but if you look at the Joker and you compare Jack Nicholson to Joaquin Phoenix to Heath Ledger, I mean, which one of those is the right Joker? They are completely different characters, basically. They've got obvious similarities, but that's what an adaptation is. That's what happens. You filter it through a new medium, you filter it through a new artist, and you get new interpretations. And I think we should relish that. There's a great opportunity in that.

Especially as people have been talking about the superhero movie bubble for 15 years now, and it just doesn't seem like it's going to pop, we'll get to do different interpretations of these characters and stories. But I imagine in your case, it's fun. You get to be this guy who, you don't have the weight of playing the Joker on your shoulders, but you're just like, "Okay, I have this cool guy who I can be the interpretation of that character in people's eyes."

Absolutely. No, I missed out on that wave. I did have to play one of the most popular men of all time with Barack Obama. I think the pressure gods have found an equilibrium there.

Playing the Joker probably would pale in comparison in some ways to playing Obama. So originally you were like, "If I can just do theater, I'm happy. This is making it." Now you're are doing all these frankly incredible things. What haven't you done yet that you look at your career?

Oh, well I guess, there are two answers there. One is that, I wrote and directed a show called "Maxxx," which is available on Hulu, and I really loved that. I love the idea of creating more content, and I'm in talks right now with a number of companies in the States about developing some more content. So that's something I'm really passionate about. And the other is comedy. "Maxxx," my TV show, is a comedy, and I haven't done a comedy movie yet.

I could absolutely see you, not to pitch you anything here, but for some reason, Mason to me lends himself ... I can see you doing a buddy cop comedy with, I don't know who the other guy or woman would be, but you in a buddy cop comedy to me seems like, I would watch the s*** out of that.

I am here for it. Let's call up Tiffany Haddish.

Oh my God. There it is. That's exactly who it is.

Well, I'm here for it. Let's put it out into the universe.

Just before I let you go here, you have "The First Lady" coming out, but is there anything else you're working on? Anything else you've got coming up that you'd like to talk about?

Well, I can't actually say what the name of the project is yet, but myself and my brother are just finalizing talks on a project, which is going to be a television project, which has got African themes and is going to be a lot of fun. So yeah, that's what I'm working on next.

"The First Lady" premieres on Showtime on April 17, 2022.