Jonathan Majors’ upcoming commitment as Kang the Conqueror will be the career-defining role that launches him into the shrines of CBM greats, not because of the insanely Machiavellian scale of the comic book supervillain but because of who the actor takes his inspirations from to portray the said character. His being assigned to the role of the time-traveling world-conquering Kang was merely one aspect of the casting director’s job.
Fortunately for us Marvel loonies, this particular multiversal supervillain happens to be a brilliant and invested academic researcher of all the greats that came before him. But most of all, it is the late Heath Ledger as Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight that manages to silence him into bewilderment. And Majors’ plan, in his own boldly-stated claim, is to outperform the iconic villainy of Ledger himself.
Jonathan Majors Makes a Promise About Kang’s Portrayal
In the beginning, Jonathan Majors was only a promising subliminal character as He Who Remains in Loki Season 1. His elevated rank by the end of The Citadel at the End of Time and establishment as MCU’s very own Kang the Conqueror is simply a chilling invocation of that one time Bruce Banner crashed into the Sanctum Sanctorum from outer space to warn the Avengers – “He is coming”. But a major cause behind the dreaded yet electrifying arrival of Kang in the MCU is based on the level of chaos and destruction he could incur, almost like a magically enhanced, outer-worldly version of the Clown Prince of Crime himself.
Jonathan Majors, for his part, is a huge fan of Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the legendary DC comics villain and has tried to incorporate that electrifying aura of evil intent in his character’s portrayal (sans the crazed maniacal laughter). When talking about the late actor, Majors claimed:
“Okay, first of all, he’s gorgeous. He’s got that f*cking jawline, and he didn’t give a f*ck. He threw his body around. He was so full. And I went, ‘I’m coming for that. I’m inspired.’ It takes a lot, you feel me? To be inspired.”
Of course, Kang the Conqueror rarely ever throws his body around as the Joker usually does in his demented rampage through the slick streets and alleyways of Gotham. The way of the space-faring supervillain is more evolutionary and technologically reliant and even though, the two characters are poles apart in their villainous traits, it would be a wonderful juxtaposition to see how Jonathan Majors uses his accumulated know-how of Heath Ledger’s performance to influence Kang the Conqueror’s characteristic arc.
Jonathan Majors Writes a Thesis on Nolan’s The Dark Knight
According to a Variety report, Jonathan Majors had once written an entire essay on the second film of Christopher Nolan’s legendary Dark Knight trilogy and critically analyzed all its moving parts to unify them in a single train of thought. The actor wrote:
“The film asks what it is to be human, what it is to be alive and to participate fully in one’s own living. ‘The Dark Knight’ etches so vividly the agnostic morality of survival and the discipline of goodness. Nolan’s second installment of the ‘Dark Knight’ trilogy holds in its runtime an impregnable truth: Life and people are beautifully complicated and evolving. It is this fact that has allowed ‘The Dark Knight’ to stand up and stand out all these many years later.”
Little did he know, that the young 18-year-old teenager who was so awestruck by the movie and by Heath Ledger would go on to rise up the ranks of Hollywood and challenge the late CBM legend by playing a part that is equally worthy of being deemed as a megalomaniacal villain in the Marvel franchise 15 years later.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania premieres on February 17, 2023.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
