The Big Picture

Collider’s Steve Weintraub talks with
Daredevil: Born Again
stars Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onoforio at New York Comic Con 2024.
Disney+’s
Daredevil: Born Again
is the sequel fans have been waiting for, bridging the gap between Season 3 and a new future.
During this interview, Cox and D’Onofrio discuss impressive oners and intense interactions between Daredevil and Kingpin in the 9-episode season.

Welcome back to Hell’s Kitchen. It’s been almost six years since the cancellation of Netflix’s Daredevil, but fret not. The beloved Marvel franchise finally gets a second life with its highly anticipated sequel Daredevil: Born Again. Since Charlie Cox’s little cameo as Matt Murdock in Spider-Man: No Way Home, fans have been speculating whether the vigilante hero is set for a real, proper comeback. The new series, which aims to bridge the gap between Daredevil Season 3 and a new future, confirms that.

Daredevil: Born Again sees the return of Cox as Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer who’s in hot pursuit of justice with his heightened abilities. But not everyone is happy with his endeavors, especially former mob boss Wilson Fisk, a.k.a. Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio). Connected by an invisible thread, it looks like these two have something much more in common than they realize.

At this year’s New York Comic Con, Cox and D’Onofrio surprised fans at a Daredevil panel, where lucky fans got to see an exclusive trailer, before stopping by Collider’s Interview Studio. The duo sat down with Steve Weintraub to discuss what we can expect from the series’ return, including oners, “Disney+ firsts,” and the relationship between Murdock and Fisk. For all of this and more, check out the full conversation in the video above or in the player below.

Charlie Cox Met a Matt Murdock Cosplayer on the Subway
Image via Sideshow

COLLIDER: We’re overlooking the con, and no one’s looking up except when you were looking at some people and they were waving.

CHARLIE COX: I just saw a Daredevil down there and waved to him, and he waved back. It was pretty cool.

I can’t imagine what it’s like for the person who’s actually cosplaying Daredevil to look up and see that has to be, like, year made.

COX: Once on Halloween, like 2014 or ‘15, in the morning, I got on the subway to go to the gym. I wasn’t really thinking, and I walked onto the subway, and I sat down opposite a Matt Murdock with the glasses, and I was like, “Oh, cool!” But for him, it must have been… He was cosplaying for one day of that year as Matt Murdock, and he got on the train and sat down opposite me. He was just blown away by it. It was so funny.

Did he freak?

COX: Yeah, totally. He couldn’t believe it. I mean, the chances of that are pretty slim, you gotta think.

It’s probably negative chance.

COX: Also, who’s already in costume at 9 am? Do you know what I mean? [Laughs]

Someone going to work and going full force.

‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Premieres on March 4th, 2025
Image via Sony Pictures Releasing

You guys have done a bunch of cons. What is it actually like for the two of you? Do you get to enjoy walking the floor at all, or you can’t unless you’re wearing a mask?

VINCENT D’ONOFRIO: I can’t do it a lot, and you can’t stand still for a long time because then a crowd would gather. But if I have a chance, I walk around. As long as you keep moving and you don’t have an entourage, you’re fine.

I was with Guillermo del Toro walking around at San Diego Comic-Con, and he said, “The secret is I can’t stop. Once I stop, it’s game over.”

D’ONOFRIO: That’s always the thing.

What did you do at the panel?

COX: We showed a trailer.

D’ONOFRIO: We surprised the panel. We were surprise guests.

So they just knew “Marvel panel?”

COX: No, it was a Daredevil panel — not a Daredevil: Born Again panel, but a Daredevil panel. So, Charles Soule was there, Frank Miller was there, Sana [Amanat], who’s the producer on our show and created Ms. Marvel, she was there. They were talking about a couple of commitment releases they have coming up, and then at the end, we came on and surprised them, talked a little bit about the show, and then showed a trailer and released the date.

D’ONOFRIO: March 4th.

It’s too far away. I wanted it, like, December 1st. Can we change that?

COX: Yeah.

D’ONOFRIO: Sure.

COX: They normally consult us about that.

D’ONOFRIO: Maybe we can get it released tomorrow.

Image via Netflix

First of all, I’m happy that the promotional machine has actually begun because I really can’t wait to watch the episodes. What is it like for the two of you? We’re literally in Hell’s Kitchen? Hell’s Kitchen is right there. You know what I mean? This is the home of Daredevil.

D’ONOFRIO: New York is such a big part of our show.

COX: As is the Javits Center. I had a run-in with Bullseye in this place.

D’ONOFRIO: There was a Fisk. You missed him. He was over there. He was a small Fisk. He was a little on the short side.

COX: One of the years when we finished the panel, there was a huge thunderstorm, and we couldn’t leave. There was a problem with the cars, and so I had a friend go and grab a Spider-Man mask and I went out on the floor with just my mate. Every time we found a Daredevil, we had this little ruse where we’re like, “Oh, cool. Can we take a photo with you?” And then we pretended that my phone didn’t work, and so we’re like, “Can we use your phone?” And they would be like, “Sure,” which is weird for them because they didn’t ask for the photo. Then, right as he took the photo, I would take the mask off and then hand them their phone back, and then just go into the crowd. We found a bunch of them on social media afterward, which was pretty cool.

D’ONOFRIO: Aw, that’s nice.

Everything about that is A+.

‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Is Going to Be Dark Like the Original Series
Image via Netflix

So with the upcoming episodes that I can’t wait to see and everyone who’s watching this can’t wait to see, what are you allowed to tease? What do you want fans to know?

D’ONOFRIO: We’re continuing the darkness of the first series on Netflix. It is gonna be that dark and that intense. We worked our butts off to make it that way. So, we’re excited about it because of that. As far as I’m concerned, the biggest question that I get asked the most is, is it gonna be dark like the original series? And the answer to that is a definite yes. It is dark. It is crazy. We do some things that are definitely a first for Disney+.

Again, A+. I like your answers today.

COX: Also, from the episodes I saw, I got an F-bomb in there for the first time ever.

Is it Episode 1?

COX: It is not, but it was shocking to me. It’s almost under my breath, but you can hear it. I was like, “Oh wow. Great!” Good to know for Season 2.

D’ONOFRIO: It’s so funny that the “F word” is a problem, and yet one of the things that I do seems to be okay. I’m surprised it made it into the show.

Are you talking about extreme violence?

D’ONOFRIO: What are you saying about my character? No, yeah.

COX: Unnecessarily evil.

D’ONOFRIO: It was an unnecessarily evil thing to do.

The MPAA is so full of shit. You can’t acknowledge this, but let me just say that they allow such insane violence for PG-13, but if you say “fuck” twice — oh my god, rated R.

COX: I remember in Season 2, we had an issue where we weren’t allowed to kill a dog.

Well, no one should be in any show.

COX: No, you shouldn’t. Sure. We can kill people but don’t you dare kill the dog.

I just think that the line that the MPAA has and the structure that they’ve set up, they are morons.

D’ONOFRIO: It’s always been a bit of a question mark as to how they do that.

I’m saying it: morons.

D’ONOFRIO: That’s a big word, though.

Yeah, I’ll move off it. It just really bothers me because of the extreme violence of PG-13 in some films is like, “That’s an R. You’re killing so many people. That’s an R.” I don’t care about the language, and I don’t think most people do.

COX: It’s really difficult, though. I have an eight-year-old and a four-year-old, and there are things that my four-year-old will watch that my eight-year-old won’t. You know what I mean? Everyone’s different. It’s a tough job, that.

Again, it’s my personal thing.

Charlie Cox Breaks Down an Epic Oner
Image via Disney+

One of the things that I love about Daredevil is you guys have done some incredible oners. When I spoke to you guys in Boston at FanExpo, you teased it a little bit, but I’m gonna ask you to tease it again. For people who didn’t see that interview, what can you tease about the oners in the new episodes?

COX: There is one. There is at least one. There’s a significant one, and it’s pretty cool. It’s pretty cool.

Can you explain what a oner is and what it takes?

COX: There are different types of oners. So far, we’ve done three oners that are memorable. There’s one in Episode 2 of Season 1, which is a true oner. We shot it until we got it perfect, and there are no cuts in that one shot. The camera moves around, films everything, and if anything doesn’t work, we do it again. It takes a lot of preparation. You have to dedicate at least a day or two days.

There’s something called “Texas switching,” where, without cutting the camera, me and my stunt double, or Vincent and his stunt double, are switching places so that my stunt double is doing the things that I can’t do, and I’m back into the stuff that I can do when the camera’s on my face and stuff. But you don’t notice it. We did a similar one in Season 3, Episode 4. Season 3 in the prison. There’s literally a moment where I’m kicking someone on the floor, and my foot is in camera, someone yanks me out from behind, and the next foot that comes in was Chris’, my stunt double’s foot. It’s really fun. The technicality of it is awesome.

Anyway, we also did a oner in Season 2, which is not a true oner. So, it plays like a oner, it looks like the camera continues to move, but every now and again, the camera will swipe something that is completely black, like a jacket or a wall or something, and when that happens, you can stitch together the different takes so it plays like a oner. But sometimes you get a little bit more freedom, and you can do slightly cool stuff. So, we have a very long, very cool stitched one in the new season. I’m not gonna say which episode.

Related How Does ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Connect to the Original Series? The Cast Explains The series drops in 2025.

People love watching the two of you interact on screen. What can you tease about some of your interactions in the new season, and can you tease if you guys might be getting into fisticuffs?

COX: Historically, we don’t have many scenes together. With these characters, you have to always feel like, were they to cross paths, they would fight to the death, they would destroy, it would be hugely explosive. So, you have to, in the writing of a show, in the construction of it, you have to limit the amount of time they can be together or you have to give them real reason for them not to be together. There has to be those kinds of obstacles.

One of the things that we tease and talk about a little bit at the beginning of the show is that maybe there’s a sense that both Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk have recognized that, in their obsession to rid the city of the other, they have potentially caused the city and society more harm than they’ve done good. Early on in the season, there is a sense of a kind of quote-unquote loose truce, like, “You stay out of my lane, I stay out of yours, and we’ll be good.” That doesn’t necessarily go over particularly well. But a lot of the season, there is this feeling, this question of, like, “What is the other doing, and is it enough for me to get involved?”

D’ONOFRIO: We do spend time in the same room together at times in the show.

Lookout for ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Episode 8
Image via Marvel Studios

How many episodes is this season?

D’ONOFRIO: Nine.

Of the nine, which one are you most looking forward to fans seeing?

D’ONOFRIO: That’s a question we haven’t been asked yet.

I don’t know if it’s that good of a question.

D’ONOFRIO: It is a good question, but we just haven’t been asked for this season yet.

COX: Not because it’s my favorite, and it’s actually not my favorite, but because it’s so bold in what it attempts to do, I think I would say [Episode] 8. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Are you agreeing with Episode 8?

D’ONOFRIO: I would say [Episode] 8 is good. I think [Episode] 6 is really good.

Daredevil: Born Again is set to premiere on Disney+ on March 4, 2025. You can watch Seasons 1-3 of Daredevil on Netflix.

Matt Murdock finds himself on a collision course with Wilson Fisk when their past identities begin to emerge.Release Date January 1, 2024 Writers Chris Ord Streaming Service(s) Disney+ Showrunner Chris Ord

WATCH ON NETFLIX