Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I hadn't read comics really before coming in to shooting the original 'Thor.' During that and beforehand, I read stacks and got my head around it all. We reference, especially when we were putting the script together before we started shooting, other stories.
When the 'Seinfeld' show said it was going to be a show about nothing, everybody said it couldn't - wouldn't work. It did. 'Thor' is about something, about that character finding his destiny, but it's not doing what was expected... and yet it's doing very well.
I always liked the idea that Thor was the god who'd wake up every day and look at that hammer and not know whether he was going to pick it up. Only the worthy can lift the hammer of Thor, and I love the idea of a god who was always questioning his own worthiness.
The majority of the DC and Marvel comic lines are white male characters, and the minute you make Thor a woman or Captain America a black guy, the Internet is filled with hateful comments and people saying, 'That's not what Captain America is supposed to look like.'
I was cast in 'Thor' and I'm cast as a Nordic god. If you know anything about the Nords, they don't look like me but there you go. I think that's a sign of the times for the future. I think we will see multi-level casting. I think we will see that, and I think that's good.
My favorite comic book growing up was 'Thor.' It was one of my three, favorite comic books. Obviously, Marvel is such a huge name, but for me, to book a role in a Marvel movie, and for it to be 'Thor.' When my manager told me I booked 'Thor,' I literally didn't know what to say.
'Thor' has got several big battles in it, a reckless, headstrong young hero who has to confront his past and deal with a complicated relationship with his father, it has lots of savage Europeans hacking each other to death at various points, and all of this sounded very much like 'Henry V.'
The weird thing is, 'Game of Thrones,' people go to Iceland for three weeks, and it'd be like a small guerilla operation. 'Thor,' we went there for, like, five days, because we couldn't afford to be there any longer, because we were airlifting the entire contents of Hollywood into this country.
In 'Thor,' that was my own hair. I grew it out. But I have naturally curly, blonde hair, so I'll never look like that. By the time I got to 'The Avengers,' I had come off two other films, which required me to have it very short. So I dyed it again and it was long enough to use a part of my hairline.
I'm a huge, huge comic book fan. I love the superhero movies so much. If I had to be one of the Avengers, I would go with Thor. I would have to. I just think I look the part too much, and I'm a fan of all of them, but Thor would be something that I think I could put on. I think I could make it happen.
The black community wants to buy things and want to see themselves portrayed in a certain way. And if they don't like what they see, then they won't spend their money. Everyone's not gonna always relate to Captain America; everyone is not going to always relate to Thor. A lot of characters just don't speak to them.
When Captain America is in a room full of Marvel superheroes, he is always Top Dog, even though his powers are pretty modest. He could be stood next to Thor, Iron Man, whoever. He is the one that everyone looks up to. To me, that is Superman, too. Even de-powered in the Legion arc, he was still Superman. Still Top Dog.
Thor is magical, yes, but it is the magic of reality. His hammer was crafted 'in the heart of a dying star,' but so were you! Most of the atoms that make you up are in fact the innards of a ball of gas in space that got so heavy that it exploded. Stars died so that you could live, as physicist Lawrence Krauss would say.
It's great we have a female Thor. It's great we have a black Captain America. But those are just optics; it's optics of change... Unless you have the structural diversity, the structural change behind the scenes - more women, more people of color actually calling the shots and editing these books - those optics won't last.
As a kid, my favorite book, up until 'X-Men,' was 'Avengers.' What does Captain America have? He has a shield. What does Thor have? He has a hammer. What does Hawkeye have? He has a bow and arrow. That's why Cable came with weapons. That's why Deadpool had swords and machine guns and pistols. It's like, let's weaponize these dudes.
My brother had a big comic book chest, and he kept the key in the exact same place. So when he would leave for camp or be gone for a few days at a friend's house, I would totally sneak into that room and open the comic book chest and see 'X-Men' and 'Sandman' and all the Neil Gaiman stuff and all the Marvel stuff and some old 'Thor' comics.
At some point along the way, I stopped being a writer, and I became a black writer. I never used to be a black writer. I used to write 'Spider-Man,' 'Green Lantern,' whatever was lying around. 'Thor,' 'Hulk,' whatever. Now, if the phone rings or when the phone rings, it's almost exclusively some project that has something to do with my ethnicity.
