Idris Elba didn’t particularly enjoy his time as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe until Thor: Ragnarok came along, with the actor admitting that he wasn’t the biggest fan of being strapped into wire rigs and harnesses to deliver monotonous exposition, but that doesn’t mean he can’t encourage others to follow in his footsteps.
Jonathan Majors has become the latest ascendant star to board the world’s biggest franchise, and while the terms of his contract haven’t been made public, we can safely assume he’s been tied down for many feature films and Disney Plus exclusives seeing as he’s been set as the next Thanos-level threat.
In a new interview with The Ringer, the 32 year-old actor admitted that he wasn’t entirely sure about dedicating so much of his time and career to the MCU, before some words of encouragement from his peers ultimately ended up nudging him in the right direction.
“I had watched the films. Love Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, killed it [but] I was like, ‘I don’t think you want me. I don’t think you want what I’m going to do. Like, I don’t think you want that.’ That was my hesitation. I was like, ‘You got the right Black guy?’. We were talking about work and the legacy of Black actors and all that stuff. And he said, ‘You can do that.’ What Dwayne Johnson has done to the game, what Idris Elba has done to the game, what Will Smith did to the game. This idea that the Black men can enter into a highly commercial world. [It’s all part of] stretching it and stretching it and making more room for the fellow behind them. [Elba tells me] ‘It’s on you now.’”
Majors debuted as He Who Remains in Loki, and is currently shooting Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, where audiences will meet variant Kang the Conqueror for the first time. Anything is now possible with the multiverse in play, meaning that the star has a blank slate with which to create any number of alternate versions of his character from the ground up.
