00:00 I have to say right off the bat, I want in on the cult.
00:03 Let me join.
00:04 All right, you can join my cult.
00:05 We're going to heal the world, brother.
00:07 Let's do it.
00:07 Don't mind the shirt.
00:08 I'm in.
00:09 It's time.
00:13 You mentioned in the press conference
00:20 that when you're playing a villain,
00:22 you don't want to consider yourself a villain.
00:24 Can you explain why that's important to playing
00:27 someone like Harrow?
00:28 Whenever I see someone mustache twirling or monologuing
00:32 about how they want to destroy the world and everything,
00:36 I just get a little bored because I don't believe it,
00:39 that most of the people that inflict damage on others,
00:43 the Stalins and Pol Pots of the universe,
00:47 think they're good people.
00:48 They think the ends justify their means because they somehow
00:53 believe a divine thing is happening with them.
00:55 And they're megalomaniacs.
00:58 And so I wanted him to make a lot of sense to himself.
01:01 I think he thinks he's healing the world.
01:03 He has to do some unfortunate things,
01:05 but the world will be grateful.
01:06 You are Marvel Studios' first Middle Eastern character
01:10 on screen.
01:11 I wonder what was important to you in portraying that,
01:15 and what kind of input did you have
01:17 when it came to developing the background for this character?
01:20 We all sat together.
01:21 We spent like six hours on every episode
01:25 and had this kind of rehearsal process.
01:28 And everyone was involved.
01:30 And because she's not someone who's been in the comics,
01:33 it took a while.
01:36 It wasn't like, "Oh yeah, this is who she is."
01:38 It took filming her for a couple months to be like,
01:40 "Oh, this is who she is."
01:42 And that came through really the stunts, a lot of it.
01:45 I trained for two months.
01:46 A lot of the physical work brought that out.
01:50 But what I loved was being able to play,
01:54 well, something I love about Arab women,
01:56 women all over, but especially Arab women,
01:58 is they have a very soft strength to them.
02:02 And I wanted to bring that to the screen,
02:06 as opposed to being like,
02:07 "She has to look this way, tough."
02:09 Or be really vulnerable.
02:11 It's like, "What if that comes together?"
02:13 So I pulled from women and myself in the Middle East,
02:20 as opposed to from the West.
02:23 We always see ourselves portrayed in such an inaccurate way.
02:27 The tropes of seeing us through the Orientalist point of view,
02:31 women are submissive, men are bad,
02:34 or terrorists, or those kinds of things.
02:36 So it was very important for me to show Mai
02:38 as a strong female character.
02:40 All my movies, and the three movies that I directed,
02:44 have very, very strong female characters.
02:47 My mom is strong.
02:48 My wife is strong.
02:49 My daughter is strong.
02:50 And this is how they are.
02:52 I wish that if I succeeded,
02:55 this opens door to more people like me,
02:58 or more people around the world,
02:59 who actually can, their voices could be heard.
03:04 Because we have, each of us,
03:06 if you felt like this show is unique,
03:09 it's because I have a unique point of view,
03:10 because I'm unique and different.
03:12 So I'm sure everyone, through their own life,
03:16 have a different point of view that we need to hear,
03:19 and we need to see,
03:20 and it's probably fresh and different.
03:21 (knocking)
03:23 - What's going on?
03:25 (dramatic music)
03:29 - Well, obviously, as you can imagine,
03:30 we always from day one,
03:31 wanted to be respectful and reverential.
03:33 And to do so, we brought in consultants,
03:35 especially on the mental health side,
03:37 because it's a challenge.
03:38 We're obviously dealing with a superhero.
03:40 We're dealing with a fictional representation of this,
03:43 a supernatural infused representation.
03:46 But we worked with consultants
03:47 to try to get the mental health aspect of it right,
03:50 and always be, as I said, respectful.
03:51 And I think the fans,
03:54 when the final frame is shown
03:56 and lights come up after the final episode,
03:58 I think they are gonna feel that respect
03:59 with which we worked with the mental illness.
04:03 And then on the Egyptian side,
04:05 part of that job got really, really easy
04:07 when we hired Mohamed Diab.
04:09 And it's one of the reasons
04:10 why we hired the great Mohamed Diab.
04:12 He's not just a storyteller,
04:14 he's an Egyptian storyteller
04:15 working at the top of his game.
04:17 And everything that he comes to
04:19 with the narrative,
04:20 he comes through from an organic representation
04:22 of Egypt, of Cairo.
04:25 And that's why that became much easier,
04:27 because it wasn't like...
04:28 And we had great researchers on this show.
04:30 We had a great production designer, Stefania Stella,
04:33 always making authenticity first and foremost.
04:36 But when your director lives there,
04:39 grew up there, lives and breathes it,
04:40 it made that aspect so much easier
04:42 to represent properly.
04:44 And I think we did so.
04:45 - The guy's a real artist.
04:46 You know, he just is.
04:48 And he's a very...
04:50 There's love for him
04:53 because he puts a lot of love out into the world.
04:55 He's a great listener and a great thinker.
04:59 And he knew that this was a huge opportunity for him
05:03 to play on a really big canvas, you know,
05:07 and to really engage with Hollywood
05:09 in a way that a lot of young filmmakers dream of,
05:13 you know, and that he wanted to do his best.
05:16 And he just put forth tremendous effort
05:20 and put his intelligence and his wife too, Sarah.
05:23 They're very kind, warm-hearted people
05:26 who took the opportunity really seriously.
05:29 And that inspires you to go to work
05:33 when you know somebody really cares
05:35 about what they're doing,
05:36 and it really is important to them.
05:37 - A lot of it was we were kind of digging into
05:39 our own experience
05:45 and our own instincts on exactly what's exciting
05:48 and what's thrilling and what's scary and what's personal.
05:51 Really, again, what's personal was where we kept on digging.
05:54 And "Muhammad" was exactly the same way
05:57 where there wasn't a whole lot of conversation around like,
06:00 "Make this moment like this movie."
06:02 And the reason is "Moon Knight" is a character
06:05 that has no canonic affiliation
06:12 with the Avengers necessarily.
06:14 He doesn't have to.
06:16 In some ways, he's an outcast from the main,
06:19 the biggest characters in Marvel.
06:21 And so we were kind of allowed to do exactly whatever we want,
06:25 but also we needed to do something
06:28 that was very, very left of center.
06:30 And that was really exciting to us when we signed on.
06:33 - Yeah?
06:36 - Oh my God, you're alive.
06:38 What's wrong with you, Mark?
06:40 - Why did you call me Mark?
06:42 - But I do wonder which version of "Moon Knight,"
06:45 whether it's Mark or Steven or Moon Knight himself,
06:49 was the best scene partner for you?
06:52 Which one was the most enjoyable to act alongside?
06:55 - I loved Steven because he's such an open person.
07:01 Mark is guarded, which in turn made me feel a bit guarded, right?
07:07 'Cause you're like, "What's gonna come out of this right now?"
07:10 And so Steven just felt like light and free,
07:12 and he's such a nuanced, interesting character.
07:16 - The first couple of days, or the first maybe couple of weeks,
07:19 Oscar said, "I only wanna be Steven or Mark."
07:23 He, I think, he needed more time to be absolutely confident
07:28 he can do that.
07:29 I know he can.
07:30 He's a genius.
07:31 So one day we started doing those reflection scenes,
07:36 and I just like told him, "Let's try to do it.
07:39 It doesn't have to be two days.
07:40 Let's try to do this."
07:41 And all of a sudden, the camera's just panning back and forth,
07:45 and he turns from Mark and Steven in seconds,
07:47 and he inhibits them, and you have to know that it's not easy.
07:51 - If Oscar is Mark in that moment,
07:55 you'll know it without him even speaking.
07:58 His face changes, his posture changes, everything.
08:01 We were thinking we were gonna have to like,
08:03 make big changes to wardrobe, like relatively.
08:06 Like it would have to be like really conspicuous.
08:07 Like, "No, no, no."
08:08 Oscar can just do it with literally a look,
08:12 a change in the muscles in his face.
08:14 - I wanna tell you something.
08:15 When he's Steven, he's approachable.
08:18 When he's Mark, he's scary.
08:20 You're just like, "You know what?
08:21 You're on your own.
08:21 Direct yourself.
08:22 It's funny.
08:23 It's fine.
08:23 Do whatever you want."
08:24 But he's, that's how good he is.
08:26 - And when he was interested in this, we said,
08:28 "Oh my gosh, this is an amazing opportunity to tell Moon Knight."
08:31 Because Moon Knight is such a complex character study,
08:34 first and foremost, that we needed somebody like Oscar,
08:38 somebody who's at the top of their craft,
08:39 which Oscar obviously is, to portray Mark Spector,
08:42 Steven Grant, Moon Knight, Mr. Knight.
08:44 And he came aboard and it was a breath of fresh air.
08:47 He's amazing.
08:48 Mae Calamaui is amazing.
08:49 Ethan Hawke is absolutely jaw-dropping as Arthur Harrow.
08:54 Our cast, our crew, our directors,
08:57 this was an embarrassment of riches.
08:58 This was working with a lot of people
09:00 at the top of their game.
09:01 - I remember I would be so like tied to the lines, you know?
09:05 And I'd be like, "No, no, no.
09:06 I have to say this."
09:06 And Oscar would be like, "Mae,
09:08 if you understand what you're saying, you can go off."
09:12 And 'cause I'd watch him and him and Ethan
09:14 and they would be so free.
09:15 And I'm like, "How do they do that?"
09:17 Like, "This is marvel.
09:18 How are they?"
09:19 I'm like, "They really trust themselves."
09:21 Then I'm like, I grew up in Bahrain
09:23 and I feel like I'm English ESL,
09:26 like it's my second language,
09:27 but I'm also not perfect in Arabic.
09:30 So, you know, so I sometimes didn't trust myself
09:33 and I had to give, that was a good,
09:35 that was something I've taken with me into other work
09:38 of like really understand what's going on.
09:41 And then it doesn't matter
09:42 if you fully stick to the script.
09:45 Oh, that's like, you know, of course they want you to.
09:47 But Oscar would give me these like nuggets of advice around
09:52 and it was really helpful.
09:53 - Just as strictly as a fan boy,
09:55 not even someone who works at Marvel.
09:57 I'm so excited about some of the stuff
09:59 that's coming up at Marvel
10:00 that does have a slightly darker edge.
10:02 You know, I think when you do look at the tones
10:04 and the themes that we deal with in "Moon Knight,"
10:07 you know, we talked about the action adventure of it all,
10:10 the intense character study, the horror, the comedy,
10:13 all that, the mind bending journey that he goes on.
10:17 I think he merges well in any corner
10:20 of the Marvel cinematic universe.
10:21 But honestly, when you do look at the "Doctor Strangers"
10:24 of the world, when you do look at "Blade,"
10:25 when you do look at all those other shows
10:27 that embrace what goes bump in the night,
10:30 I'm excited about the future that Kevin has in his mind.
10:33 And I can't wait to see where this character
10:35 and many more land.
10:35 - Amazing.
10:36 Well, that's actually gonna be our time today,
10:38 but I really appreciate you taking a moment
10:40 to talk to CinemaBlend.
10:41 - Thank you so much.
10:43 And I'm glad you're a member of my cult, you know?
10:45 - That must be very difficult.
10:47 - The voices in your head.
10:50 - God!
10:51 - Fuck!
10:52 - Fuck!
10:52 - There's chaos in you.
10:54 [explosion]
10:57 - Embrace it.
10:57 [explosion]
10:59 [slicing]
11:01 [slicing]
11:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]
