For all its other successes, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has had its fair share of naff villains. Arguably, the worst is Malekith the Accursed, the leader of the Dark Elves from 2013’s already underwhelming Thor: The Dark World. It turns out it’s not only the fans who don’t look upon Malekith highly, either, as actor Christopher Eccleston has also blasted the role in a new interview.
While talking with Graham Norton on his BBC Radio 2 show, Eccleston admitted that his part in The Dark World was “not my greatest moment, it has to be said.” A major reason the former Doctor Who star found the movie such a drag was the lengthy make-up sessions he needed to sit through every morning in order to get into character.
“The first couple of days it was about seven hours, eight hours [in make-up]. I think we got it down to six and a half. It’s a day’s work before [anything].”
What made it even worse was that Eccleston didn’t know that this was what he was signing up for. He went on to slam Marvel Studios for being “dishonest” with him about the real requirements of the job beforehand.
“Marvel were dishonest to me because they never, ever let me know that there’d be that amount of make-up.”
Though he doesn’t discuss it here, we wouldn’t be surprised if Eccleston also wasn’t best pleased about how much of his role in the film was removed during editing. Before The Dark World‘s release, the actor spoke of how he liked exploring Malekith’s damaged psyche and his warped reasoning for wanting to destroy the universe. In the finished piece, however, virtually none of his motivations remained, leaving the villain as a very cardboard character.
In short, we don’t expect Malekith to return in any future MCU films, like Avengers: Infinity War or Thor 4. And given Eccleston’s comments here, that’s probably for the best.