Iron Man 3 might have kicked off Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a bang last year, but one aspect of the film that split fans was ‘The Mandarin Twist’, whereby – SPOILERS – Ben Kingsley’s villain was actually revealed to be a drunken British actor portraying a role at the behest of Guy Pearce’s Aldrich Killian. Obviously this was a huge departure from the source material, but star Ben Kingsley has revealed that he “wasn’t worried” about how fans might react to the big reveal.
“I wasn’t worried. I truly wasn’t worried,” Kingsley told The Huffington Post during a promotional interview for the Thor: The Dark World One-Shot All Hail the King. “When I worked a lot in the theater before I became heavily involved in movies, which I love, I was privileged to play a lot of Shakespearian roles that most people in the audience were familiar with and everyone has their preconception of … so, it had to be my Mandarin. It had to be my Trevor. I think that what I’m saying is that I tend to take on the character and not be concerned too much about the audience’s reaction to how I’m portraying it and which direction I’m going. So, I didn’t even think of the twist. I thought f it as one whole balanced acting exercise. So, if it’s naive of me, I apologize. But, it didn’t worry me that, ‘Ooh, this might be rejected.'”
Kingsley then went on to discuss the reaction to the twist, stating that: “I can only respond by congratulating Kevin Feige, Drew Pearce and Shane Black on holding their nerve — on holding their nerve right through the shoot. When I came back to do some little tidy up reshoots, I thought, Oh, they’re still holding their nerve. This is still Trevor and the Mandarin. And to hold your nerve as a Marvel Comics filmmaker is great. They did. If they would have wobbled, I would have been dead in the water. They held their nerve. Terrific. And I think you’re right — I don’t get too heavily involved with feedback; I express and then I’m done. I paint my portrait and then I put my brushes down and I walk away. But it has filtered through to me in a gentle way that very, very, very few people indeed were upset by that twist. Even avid Marvel fans, they went along with it.”
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Originally published February 12, 2014. Updated April 11, 2018.
