Mahershala Ali is set to play Blade in an upcoming film for Marvel Studios. In a recent interview with Empire, Ali spoke about the excitement of getting to play such an iconic character and getting to appear in a small way in a recent Marvel release.
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For those unaware, and with a bit of a spoiler warning for those who might not want to know, Ali’s Blade very briefly appears in voice only as part of the last post-credits scene in Marvel’s Eternals. He can be heard speaking to Kit Harington’s Dane Whitman just as Whitman is seen going to touch what looks to be the Ebony Blade.
“It was really cool, getting to do that,” Ali said of stepping into the voice-booth and getting to become Blade for the first time. “It was scary. Because, you know, you’re talking before you’re filming it. I’m pretty particular about my choices, like most actors, and so having to make some choices – even with a line, vocally – this early on, it brought up some very real anxieties. And it made the job real. It’s like, ‘Okay, this is happening now’, you know, and that’s exciting.”
Ali went on to say that work on the Blade film is getting close to up and running. “That Marvel world is obviously the biggest in film, and just to get my little introduction to that – starting with the Comic Con a couple years ago, and now the very early stages of stepping into the shoes of that character – it felt special and really cool,” he says. “I’m excited to get going and do more.
“We’re getting there,” he said, “we’re getting close.”
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The Blade Trilogy from New Line Cinema helped shepherd comic books and superheroes to the big screen. Combined, the three films brought in over $400 million at the global box office. Blade was created by writer Marv Wolfman and artist Gene Colan as a supporting character in the comic book “The Tomb of Dracula” #10 in July of 1973.
