[SPOILERS FOR IRON MAN 3 BEFORE I EVEN BEGIN]
Sir Ben Kingsley made quite an impression in Iron Man 3 as (space inserted to prevent the bit that appears on the front page and in Facebook posts from including this spoiler part, even though you’ve probably all seen the movie by now. Is that enough? We’ll find out…) the evil terrorist The Mandarin, who turned out just to be (more space just in case) Trevor Slattery, sloppy actor from Croydon. Oh, how the comic book community loved THAT little plot twist. But, so much of an impression did Kingsley make in his role within a role that Marvel have brought him back (still bearded and ponytailed, naturally) for the latest Marvel One-Shot short film, entitled All Hail the King.
In it, Slattery has become a celebrity prisoner after the events of IM3, and he sits down with a documentary filmmaker (played by Scoot McNairy) to discuss his process, his actor’s pain, and his struggle for acceptance. Yeah, he’s full of it. Enjoy the first images of said short below. It looks like Slattery’s found his color. Oranges: the new black.
You can see Kingsley and McNairy in All Hail the King as part of the Thor: The Dark World Blu-ray combo pack, hitting store shelves and online retailers on February 25th which will also include deleted and extended scenes, a 30-minute retrospective about Thor and Loki, a first look at Captain America: The Winter Soldier and a commentary with director Alan Taylor, producer Kevin Feige, and Loki himself, Tom Hiddleston.
It takes a concerted effort to break away from one’s English-speaking crowd and join a diner’s club or discussion group where you’ll hear more Hebrew.
I always thought the end was kind of cool sort of a way to reuse him later in bigger plots! Kind of a tease, then he pretends it’s not him and BOOM add a scene later where we see his rings and an evil smile hinting at his always evilness that fooled us into thinking he was just “an actor”
I’m not sure if he might rise to be the real Mandarin because there was a great article I read online why Killian really was the mandarin and how they fit the role perfectly for him. You can read it here:
http://ronriii.tumblr.com/post/50492140064/aldrich-killian-is-the-mandarin
@Mark S You’ve mirrored my theory exactly. Since the moment it was revealed, I’ve theorized (and hoped) that Trevor was not playing The Mandarin, but that The Mandarin was playing Trevor.
It’s too good of a double bluff for them to not use it, so I really want it to be true. Ben Kingsley, as both characters, was the absolute best part of the movie for me. And the “comic book community” can suck it if they didn’t like it, because it was brilliant.
My thought has always been the Mandarin is the evil mastermind we all knew and expected. The sloppy actor was a bit he was playing to downplay his actual role in the crimes committed. Sort of undercover boss style. We’ll see 🙂
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I heard a rumor that they were going to have Sir Ben do this one shot as a way of re-establishing the Mandarin as a real threat….not sure if they were going to take the route of having him play two roles (the actor role and the actual Mandarin who is pissed that someone tried to pose as him) or if he is supposed to evolve into the mandarin.