O-T Fagbenle says he had to brush up on his Marvel Cinematic Universe knowledge when he first landed the role of Rick Mason, an ally and close friend of Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow in the Marvel action-film Black Widow.
“I was in the conversation once with [screenwriter] Eric Pearson and a couple of the producers and it was revealed that I had a certain ignorance gap in my MCU knowledge,” Fagbenle tells ABC Audio. And they all went, ‘N[ope]. That’s not what happened, because of da da da dah, da da da dah.'”
Embarrassed, O-T says producers then mandated him to “watch” a certain Marvel film “before… speaking to fans.’ And I was like, ‘I’m going to do that.'”
While it was a bit of a learning curve for O-T to fully understand the intricacies of the MCU, the bigger challenge was keeping mum on potential spoilers — especially when it came to the future of Rick Mason in other MCU properties.
“I got off an interview… and the Marvel guy came up… with the dark glasses and I was like, ‘Did I say something wrong?’ And he was like, ‘You cannot talk about those things.’ And I was like, ‘I won’t talk about those things then.’ And he was like, ‘Good.’ And so I’ve been told specifically I can’t talk about what happens in other spaces.”
“What I would say,” Fagbenle continues, “Is that like with streaming services and that, the possibility of expanding this universe and people getting to explore different characters is… immense. And I’m happy to fit in wherever they want me.”
Marvel Studios’ Black Widow is in theaters and available to stream with Premier Access on Disney+.
Marvel Studios is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC Audio.
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