Rather than being a triumphant return to form and a promise that Phase Five is going to be nothing but plain-sailing from hereon in, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has instead made fans question whether the Multiverse Saga can live up to its lofty ambitions. The shaky CGI, for one, has left us pondering if Marvel even has the technical ability to handle all the comic book craziness that’s to come when this saga concludes with Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars.
Speaking of Kang, however, Jonathan Majors also has a very tough task ahead of him in not just playing a villain who can measure up to Josh Brolin’s Thanos, but multiple villains. While everyone loved his work as the quirky He Who Remains in Loki and his performance is suitably intimidating in Quantumania, the movie’s post-credits scenes were arguably less convincing at assuring us that all of the Kangs will be powerful characters in their own right, as briefly glimpsed variants like Immortus and Rama-Tut merely seemed like Majors playing dress-up.
Nobody’s denigrating Majors’ acting skills, of course, but should he wish to look around at prior depictions of characters with multiple personas then he certainly has a lot of inspiration to mine. Be it James McAvoy’s acclaimed turn in M. Night Shyamalan’s Split or Sylvester Stallone’s work as The Toymaker in the cinematic masterpiece that is Spy Kids 3, a movie that is clearly something of a major influence on Marvel as it is.
However, if he really wants to get it right, Majors would be wise to check out a vastly underrated project starring none other than his MCU colleague Brie Larson. Namely, United States of Tara, a dramedy series that’s unfairly disappeared into the Quantum Realm of forgotten TV shows.
Running on Showtime for three seasons between 2009-11, United States of Tara stars the one and only Toni Collette as the titular Tara, a suburban mother diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Coming from an idea by Steven Spielberg himself and with Jennifer’s Body creator Diablo Cody as showrunner, Tara had a lot of top-tier creative talent behind the scenes, but naturally it’s Collette’s multi-faceted performance that is the real draw.
Although she is ably supported by her co-stars, including John Corbett as Tara’s husband, Larson as her teenage daughter, and even another Marvel alum in Patton Oswalt, Collette essentially creates an ensemble cast by herself, crafting a unique character out of each of Tara’s alters. Among these wildly different personas are flighty adolescent T, 1950s housewife Alice, and male Vietnam vet Buck, with others being introduced as the show goes on.
In terms of its content, United States of Tara couldn’t be more different from what Marvel is doing with Kang, but Jonathan Majors could learn a lot from what Toni Collette achieves in this series. Maybe Brie Larson could recommend he give it a binge once the pair finally face off on screen?