Nobody seems to have gotten more of a kick out of M.O.D.O.K. making his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania than returning star Corey Stoll, and with good reason.
Not only did he get to bring one of the most iconic and ridiculous comic book villains of all-time to life by doing little more than a couple of days performing facial performance capture and ADR in the recording booth, but he’s deservedly taken a leaf out of Captain America’s book by claiming the title of the Quantum Realm’s ass for himself.
As you can imagine, pitching an actor who’d been killed off a decade prior the role of a giant floating head in a chair sounds preposterous on paper, with director Peyton Reed revealing to IndieWire that Stoll found it just as hilarious.
“The day I called Corey to say, ‘Hey, listen, we want to do this thing. Are you familiar with the character MODOK, the mechanized organism designed only for killing?’ The thing you may not know about Corey is that he’s a comics nerd. He immediately knew and started giggling. And I said, “What if Yellowjacket didn’t die and he shrunk down and went to the Quantum Realm and was rescued?’ Throughout that call Corey was giggling. He’s like, ‘I’m in, I’m in, let’s do it!’ He embraced it. Corey just leapt at the chance to not only be resuscitated, but in the most bizarre way imaginable.”
This happened before Stoll discovered his digital ass cheeks would make an appearance in Quantumania, so he was already onboard with the preposterous nature of his comeback before he even discovered his butt would be on display. M.O.D.O.K. may have split opinion, but at least the man behind machine had a blast.