‘Quantumania’ star honestly says MODOK scenes were like performing Shakespeare

Not to get all Martin Scorsese on you, but not many people would describe Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania as high art. Going by its atrocious Rotten Tomatoes and continued online backlash, even the most hardcore of MCU fans would have to admit that Ant-Man 3 is about as low-brow as the Marvel universe gets. So that’s why it’s a little bit eyebrow-raising that one of the movie’s stars is now saying that shooting the thing was like performing Shakespeare.

While speaking to The Wrap, MCU newcomer Kathryn Newton was asked if she had to undergo a “crash course” in Marvel effects work while filming Quantumania. The Cassie Lang actress admitted this kind of was the case, thanks to some of her earliest scenes coming opposite Corey Stoll’s M.O.D.O.K., with something about it recalling the feeling of playing out the works of William Shakespeare. As Newton put it:

“That’s a really great question. And I’m so happy that you asked it because it was my first couple days of filming. We shot Corey’s M.O.D.O.K. We shot all his scenes and he wore this big thing around his head, and we did a weird blocking, really, on a stage — it felt like Shakespeare. And I learned immediately like how to be in a Marvel movie. And Paul told me not to hold back and it really set the tone for the movie.”

For anyone whose Shakespeare knowledge is a little rusty, we’ll clarify now that none of the Bard’s 37 plays feature an oversized egg-headed villain who flashes his bare behind at the audience. Presumably, then, Newton’s opinion that shooting those M.O.D.O.K. scenes was like a Shakespeare play likely has something to do with the stripped-back staging of the sequences. Alternatively, maybe it was the dramatically ripe dialogue. Lines such as “Don’t be a D*ck, Darren” are certainly on the level of anything you’ll find in Macbeth or Hamlet.

Honestly, though, Newton probably wasn’t the only one getting Shakespeare vibes concerning M.O.D.O.K., as seeing how Marvel massacred their boy was surely on a level with any of old Bill’s tragedies for comic book readers everywhere.