Moon Knight premiered on Disney Plus this Wednesday, and Marvel fans seemed to love everything about it. Everything, that is, except the character of Donna. Bitchy boss to Oscar Isaac’s adorable gift-shop employee Steven Grant, Donna was deliberately portrayed as the ultimate passive-aggressive manager from hell, and social media immediately started baying for her blood due to her poor treatment of Steven.
Thankfully, Isaac and actress Lucy Thackeray got on a lot better in real-life. The Direct sat down for an interview with Thackeray, with the English actress revealing that — in the reverse of her character’s relationship with Steven — she was initially nervous about working with the Star Wars veteran as she admired him so much. Just as you’d expect, though, Isaac turned out to be extremely generous and collaborative.
“It was really amazing, and [laughs] I was really nervous on my first day; because it’s Oscar Isaac. You know? He was so lovely, and a real… actor’s actor. So he’s really generous. It’s a real collaboration. I’ve worked on things where you’ve had quite a big name in it, and you’re kinda not allowed to talk to them. Or not allowed to offer any suggestions or anything like that… with egos and you really do feel that there’s a hierarchy on set. But I really didn’t feel that at all on Moon Knight.”
Thackeray went on to praise Isaac as someone who doesn’t act like the major movie star that he is, which helped to establish a down-to-earth and fun atmosphere on set.
“I think a lot of that was Oscar, because he’s so generous, and also Mohamed Diab, [one of the] the director[s]. [Diab] was so enthusiastic and had so much energy. It just put me at ease straight away… Oscar Isaac doesn’t really feel like a film star to me anymore, do you know what I mean? He’s so normal… and lovely. It was great fun.”
In the same interview, Thackeray admitted that, as is the norm for Marvel, she landed her part in the show despite everything about it being kept under wraps — the actress only found out the name of her character after she’d officially got the job. That’s despite Donna being an original creation for the screen, though she shares her name with Donna Kraft from the comics, who worked for Marc Spector as his publicist for a time.
Thackeray — who’s also been seen in the likes of Surge, Hatton Garden, and iBoy — mentioned getting to travel to Budapest twice during production on Moon Knight, so it seems like we’ve got more from Donna to come as the series progresses. Stay up to date with the show as it unleashes new episodes Wednesdays on Disney Plus.
