If you’ve read enough promo interviews where actors have to keep the company line with a lot of general terms, then you get a special enjoyment whenever somebody actually answers a press question with some wit. In that respect, I have to say I love Idris Elba’s answer regarding how his portrayal of Roque in the LOSERS movie was different from the character’s portrayal in the comic…
ELBA: Roque in the comic book is white and I’m black.
AY-OH! Serve that plate with a big side helping of SASS. Of course, after giving the fun answer, the man inevitably had to give the serious one to the Latino Review…
ELBA: I definitely used Roque in the comic book as my skeleton to build my Roque. So I stayed as true as I could to him. The scar was the only physical attribute that I took from the comic book and applied to myself. Other than that, I just used his personality, his persona in the comic book to make my Roque.
He also talked about his casting as another comics character, namely Heimdall in that Kenneth Brannagh-directed THOR movie you might have heard of it. I would’ve loved it if he described the differences between movie Heimdall and comic Heimdall the same way he described the differences in Roques, but alas, he was on a serious streak…
ELBA: I was cast in Thor and I’m cast as a Nordic god. If you know anything about the Nords, they don’t look like me but there you go. I think that’s a sign of the times for the future. I think we will see multi-level casting. I think we will see that and I think that’s good… I looked at the comic books actually because Heimdall, he’s a very central character and I wanted to reflect him as he is in the comic books.
Aside from that, he said the Heimdall looks “phenomenal” and that he’s going to be involved in some cool action, but that was all he was going to let slip.
I’m curious to see how Elba portrays both of these characters. I’m only familiar with him from his time on THE OFFICE. Considering that, when John Krasinski was in the running to play Captain America, somebody brought up the brilliant possibility of Rainn Wilson playing the Red Skull, I think it’d be a fun conceit to run with to do a fantasy “OFFICE to comics” casting call. You might recall that Steve Carrell was actually in the running to play the Joker for a while, too. He certainly would’ve played the part… differently than Heath Ledger. So the connections have already been establish. What other OFFICE jockies would fit? Who could Jenna Fischer play? Would Creed make a good Deathstroke? How about Kevin as Dum Dum Dugan? Run with this, people!
-- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Comics and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia. Watch out for the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover collection this April - - available for pre-order now on Amazon.com.
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