Any actor who joins the Marvel Cinematic Universe is going to spend the rest of their days being asked questions about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and even when they leave the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the questions will then focus on their potential return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In short; once you board the world’s biggest franchise, there’s a very real danger it can consume anything and everything else you touch. Luckily, as an Academy Award-nominated actor coming off the back of one of Netflix’s best-reviewed episodic originals ever, Steven Yeun refuses to even entertain the notion.
The actor was a surprising addition to the cast of Thunderbolts, and while his role remains under wraps, he addressed the elephant in the room during a roundtable interview with The Hollywood Reporter, where The Walking Dead alum explained how he ignored all of the outside noise that comes with the MCU to simply focus on the character he’s been tasked to play.
“Yeah, Jake Schreier, who did episodes of ‘Beef,’ got the gig to direct and then he saw me for this role and I read the role and I was like, ‘This is actually a really interesting role, I’d be down to explore this. I think it’s less about now checking things off a bucket list and more looking at an experience.
Sometimes I’ll have conversations with friends who are like, ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, we’re making a movie.’ And they’re like, ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ I try not to take that in because I think that’s the trap. The trap is to look at that thing in the context of how society might view that thing. In the immediate, I’m just making a movie. Putting it out is a whole other thing that I’m going to have to prepare for afterwards.”
Yeun knows there are obligations and potential multi-picture contracts that come with Kevin Feige’s superhero sandbox, but he doesn’t seem like the type to get caught up in all the external noise that follows the MCU wherever it goes.