VARIETY ‘Actors on Actors’: Charlie Cox and Joe Locke on AGATHA ALL ALONG, DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN and More

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In a new conversation for VARIETY’s “Actors on Actors” issue, Joe Locke and Charlie Cox discuss Cox reprising his role as Matt Murdock in “Daredevil: Born Again,” Locke’s worries about getting boxed into queer characters, putting on more weight to get cast in parts, the Marvel fanbase, and more. 

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Cox and Locke on “Daredevil: Born Again”:

Cox: “My body is not what it was, so the recovery time takes a little bit longer. But I’m so aware of there being a shelf life on how long you get to play a part that has not only beautifully written scene work [but also] fully developed characters and relationships between them all. It literally feels like a different side to the show where I suit up and I do all this cool action.”

Locke: “Did you think it would come back?”

Cox: “No. Never…I was absolutely shocked. It was the middle of COVID. I was in the garden, and my phone rang. I hadn’t heard from anyone from Marvel for two years at least. The last phone call I’d had was ‘We’re sorry, but the show’s been canceled.’ And then Kevin Feige calls. He wasn’t involved with the original show, because it was Marvel Television, which was a different studio at the time. I’d met Kevin—had a two-minute conversation with him when he came to see a play I was in—but we didn’t talk about ‘Daredevil.’ Two years had to pass before they could contact me about it. So he was like, ‘Do you want to come back and do some more?’ I was absolutely blown away. Couldn’t believe it. And then I didn’t hear anything for three months, so I started to question whether I’d dreamed that.”

Locke: “That sounds so Marvel.”

Locke on his worry about being boxed in as only playing queer characters, and looking up to Colman Domingo:

“I’m so worried about being boxed in. I’m really grateful that I’ve been able to play loads of great queer characters, but I don’t want that to define my career….I look at Colman Domingo. He is an incredible openly queer person, but his casting is so diverse and so different, which is so great. He plays the abusive husband in ‘The Color Purple,’ then plays an amazing character in other things. Or Jonathan Bailey. What I like about [my character on ‘Agatha’] is his queerness isn’t a defining feature…The whole point of representation is to change people’s opinions about things. You can’t do that without positive representation where it’s just a part of them. It’s great that Marvel felt willing to have that sort of representation on-screen.”

Locke and Cox on putting on more weight to get cast in more parts:

Locke: “At the moment, a lot of the auditions I get sent are for the same skinny gay twinks—which is great. And I’m really good at playing that, because I am a skinny gay twink. I’m struggling now [because] I want to do the opposite of that. I’ve been trying to put on weight recently. I just can’t do it. I know it’s like, ‘Oh, my metabolism’s too fast…’ In 10 years, I’m sure I’ll be like, ‘God, I wish!’…But I’m eating so much food, and it’s just not happening.”

Cox: “I remember when I got ‘Daredevil,’ I was 160 pounds, which is not tiny, but it’s way less than I [weigh] now. They needed me to put on significant muscle quite quickly, and it was really hard. It was a lot of protein shakes. I’d never had a protein shake in my life, and I’d never been to the gym. I did sports and yoga and stuff, but I’d never lifted weights. Now, in the last 10 years, it’s been a staple of my life. It’s literally transformed my body, for good probably.”

Locke: “I thought when I was getting ‘Agatha,’ like, ‘Great, I’m going to get paid to go and put on loads of muscle.’ And they’re like, ‘Oh, no, no…’ I was like, ‘Great, cool. Thanks, guys.’”

Cox on the Marvel fanbase:

“I’m not on social media, so I don’t really follow this conversation, but I know from other castmates that it’s important to the fan base that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is all connected. So there was a lot of pleasure from the fans that the previous show was considered canon…The fans are so passionate, and they’re very vocal. So when they like something, it’s genuinely moving. Like, ‘Oh, wow, this means a huge amount to people.’”

Cox on the original “Daredevil” Netflix series resonating with audiences:
“It’s funny how you happen upon things that end up striking a chord with audiences. We didn’t have the same budget as Marvel Studios, so everything had to be practical. We didn’t have any CGI. And it’s bizarre, therefore, that one of the things the show has been beloved for is how authentic a lot of it feels—particularly the action.”

[Photo Credit: Peggy Sirota for Variety Magazine – Video Credit: Variety/YouTube]

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