‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ star channeled Shakespeare to become one of the MCU’s best new baddies

The dust has finally settled for the Guardians of the Galaxy thanks to Vol. 3‘s rousing debut in theaters, and James Gunn has proven once again that he simply doesn’t miss when it comes to comic book movies. Even the most exhausting Marvel movie tropes, such as the third act CGI army fight and and injection of humor in more serious moments, are markedly more difficult to fault thanks to the filmmaker’s unique touch and firm grasp of these heroes.

Even though everyone was turning up to see their beloved Guardians once more, there’s no denying that Chukwudi Iwuji, who portrays the High Evolutionary, continued the trend of the Multiverse Saga having fantastic villains in the most eye-catching fashion possible. We knew we’d be getting emotional during Vol. 3, but we weren’t quite ready for some of it to manifest as unadulterated hatred for Iwuji’s character.

All that to say, of course, that he did his job spectacularly, and apparently part of that job involved channeling an unlikely inspiration that now threatens to be a trend among those involved with Marvel’s Phase Five films. In an interview with DiscussingFilm, Iwuji divulged how part of getting into character as the High Evolutionary involved some pondering about Shakespeare, specifically Henry IV and his famous “heavy is the head that wears the crown” speech.

“He needs the music as he wanders through his castle at night, and I thought very deeply about Henry IV. He has a great speech about, ‘Heavy is the head that wears the crown. ‘How many thousands of my poorest subjects that at this moment, are asleep,’ and I sent that to James.’ I knew that would be taken care of in the script, the motivations and the moments and stuff are impeccably written… so it was about, who is this guy before he turns up on the set, you know?”

To quote Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz of Phineas & Ferb fame, if we had a nickel for every time a purple-clad, scene-stealing supervillain in a Marvel movie was played by an actor who mentioned Shakespeare in the same breath, we’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is now playing in theaters.