Vincent D’Onfrio’s Marvel Cinematic Universe return was pinpointed as the fifth episode of Hawkeye months before the Disney Plus series had even premiered, but we were still subjected to plenty of scuttlebutt in the interim.
One persistent rumor that turned out to be completely wide of the mark was that the actor would be returning as a more comic-accurate Wilson Fisk, as in the white-suited crime lord of almost hilariously exaggerated proportions. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case, but D’Onofrio did reveal to ComicBook that he packed the pounds back on ahead of his reintroduction to the world of Marvel Comics adaptations.
“In a couple of shots, there were [camera perspective tricks]. But we tried a couple of different looks and the one we came down to was some extra shoulders, and extra chest, and extra girth around the middle. But I did [put on weight], I always go up about somewhere between 15 and 20 pounds when I play Fisk. Because he needs that round face…I have to put on additional weight to get some weight [in my face], to fill out my cheeks a little bit more, and then the rest [is costuming and effects]. I can’t put on that much weight anymore because of my age, it’s too hard to take off and it’s just not healthy anymore. Back when I was young, I could go up and down fairly frequently.”
As he mentioned, it can be a dangerous game for actors in D’Onofrio’s age range to try and pull a Christian Bale with any sort of regularity, with Tom Hanks admitting that the fluctuating weight required for his leading roles in movies like Philadelphia and Cast Away heavily contributed to his Type 2 diabetes diagnosis.
Colin Farrell confessed that he opted for padding under his costume in The Batman because he’d only just shed the excess poundage he’d acquired for miniseries The North Water, so perhaps in the future D’Onofrio’s Kingpin will be leaning more on camera trickery to establish his dimensions for the sake of his health.