If you’re not up to date on your Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and shows and don’t want to know any MCU SPOILERS, you shouldn’t read any further than this line.
If you’ve made it to this line, you either know by now or don’t mind hearing that Mahershala Ali, who will soon be playing the title role in Marvel’s reboot of the Blade franchise, recently made his MCU debut as Blade in an end credits scene in the movie Eternals. Blade didn’t appear on screen, but we heard his voice addressing one of the film’s characters. During a recent appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Ali discussed his vocal cameo and admits that he has lost sleep over the anticipation of taking on the role of Blade.
Ali said (with thanks to our friends at Bloody Disgusting for the interview transcription),
The anticipation is so great… my excitement for any role is pretty equal, honestly, because I feel the responsibility is always the same. But I’ve never walked into a role where the anticipation of it was so great. Where people were already so familiar with the character. And have real opinions, and points of view, and all that. So it feels different. There’s clearly an added layer of pressure, which… I will embrace. You just lose a lot of sleep over it. I was losing sleep over this (Eternals) line because, ideally, you want to be talking once you are filming… and 100% of the time, my first day on any set, on any job, I hate it. I hate how I sound. I don’t believe myself, ya know. So you’re trying to get comfortable in the character… so to have to talk before you’re even actually filming was challenging. But I’m grateful for it. Because it makes it feel real. It’s like okay, now we’re going.”
A couple weeks ago, Wesley Snipes – who played Blade in a trilogy of films that were released by New Line Cinema between 1998 and 2004 – confirmed that he has spoken to Ali about the character and shared the advice he gave to the actor who is about to fill his shoes as the vampire hunter:
Make sure you’re in shape, man. Make sure you’re in shape. Try not to get hurt. That’s big. The demands of action movies, you gotta be an elite athlete and be well conditioned to survive it and to avoid injury. And enjoy it while it lasts.”
It sounds like Ali is taking that advice, as he told Colbert,
Now I gotta get swole and jacked.”
The Blade movie is set to be directed by Bassam Tariq (Mogul Mowgli) from a screenplay by Stacy Osei-Kuffour, who previously worked on the Watchmen TV series. Ali is being joined in the cast by Delroy Lindo (The Harder They Fall).