Ariana DeBose couldn’t be more excited to make her Marvel debut alongside Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
“Who doesn’t wanna act opposite that man?” DeBose, 33, exclusively told Us Weekly while chatting about her upcoming film Kraven the Hunter on Monday, December 9. “He’s glorious and glorious in our movie.”
DeBose also shared her praise for director J. C. Chandor, whom she was a fan of before booking the supervillain flick. “I loved his film Margin Call,” she stated. “So, I thought he had a real understanding of how to potentially take some big risks in a universe, in the Sony Marvel universe, that was already establishing itself, but wanted to try something different.”
Kraven the Hunter tells the origin story of the titular Spider-Man villain (played by Taylor-Johnson) and how he became known as the greatest — and most vicious — hunter in the world. The movie marks Taylor-Johnson’s second major Marvel role, having previously appeared as Quicksilver in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron.
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Playing a character with super strength instead of super speed, DeBose told Us that Taylor-Johnson was dedicated to his physical transformation into Kraven (real name Sergei Nikolaevich Kravinoff).
“I was very much in awe of his commitment,” she shared. “I think to play a character like that, of course, there’s the work that you do as an actor, but it was the first time I’d ever had the opportunity to see up close the level of commitment and dedication that goes into the physical, preparation of, you know, changing your body, building muscle, toning muscle. There’s a real scientific process to it.”
Physique aside, DeBose noted that Taylor-Johnson is “also quite the comedic actor,” adding, “There was something he did one day in a scene and I don’t know if it actually made the movie, but my God, I was like, ‘I don’t know how he did that.’ It was just genius. It was great.”
The Oscar winner, for her part, stars as another famous comic book villain, Calypso, in the film, though DeBose remains tight-lipped about details of her version of the character. “Calypso is such a slippery character, I think, or at least when I read the script, that’s what I took away from it,” she explained. “And I liked the idea of playing a character like that.”
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While Kraven and Calypso are romantically involved in the comics, DeBose told Us their romance isn’t the main focus of their on-screen relationship. “What becomes a partnership between him and Calypso, and partnership between men and women on screen that is not always implied to be romantic, I think that can be a rarity in the industry,” she shared. “I was very intrigued by that.”
Despite playing a magic-wielding character in the new film, DeBose’s ideal superpower is much more practical. “I think, perhaps, just clarity of reading auras and character of a person,” she told Us. “If that could be my superpower for every person I meet, so that I know like, ‘Cool, cool. I’m gonna go,’ or, ‘Cool, let’s have a conversation.’ … Like, something written by your head and it’s like [pinging noises], ‘This person is a psychopath.’ That would be great.”
Kraven the Hunter hits theaters on Friday, December 13.
With reporting by Kat Pettibone
