It's almost time for The Defenders to assemble on Netflix. But first, we're meeting the mystical martial arts master Danny Rand, a.k.a. (by his glowing-fist, hero moniker) Iron Fist, who will touch down on the streaming service later next month. As is to be expected from a Marvel project like this, we still know relatively little about the actually meat and potatoes of the project, beyond some healthy comic-based speculation and a few choice quotes from the cast and creators.

Luckily, we had a chance to sit down with headliners Henwick and Jones at a recent Netflix press event, who chatted with us about the series' relationship to the comics, the show's current political relevance, how some of the character design has changed from page to screen and how Iron Fist is handling concerns about the Orientalist stereotypes found in the source material.

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Image via Marvel/Netflix

QUESTION: What made you take on these roles? I know it’s Marvel, and I know it’s Netflix.

FINN JONES: Well, to be honest, Marvel has nothing to do with it. I did want to work for Netflix, Netflix are a great company. Marvel are a great company as well, but really what excited me about this role was that you’re taking these superhero characters, and bringing them down to the real world, and you’re making them have very real problems and contradictions. And I think with both of our characters, the most interesting thing about the characters are the internal struggles, and how they deal with day-to-day problems in love while also having these superhero attributes.

JESSICA HENWICK: For me, I really liked the idea of playing a non-superhero on a superhero show, because in a world where there are people who can break things and throw things with their mind and -

JONES: Have glowing fists.

HENWICK: And have glowing fists, and they backflip everywhere, like, in a world where there are superpowers and super villains, to be mortal and to still be like, “I need to put myself on the frontline,” takes so much courage, and so that’s what I liked.

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Image via Netflix

Since these characters are so iconic and people who watch the series are already going to have these preconceived notions about them from the comics, what did you pull from the comics and what new elements did you try to bring to the role?

JONES: We both worked on Game of Thrones for six years, and I don’t know about you, but what I learned about being on that show, and it was an adaptation, is that it’s important to just deal with the source material that you’ve got in front of you. You know, I found reading the comic books and watching the other Netflix series is really good for getting an idea of the tone of the character in the shows. I just stayed very focused to our version of Danny Rand and what I can bring to the role, rather than emulate something that’s been before.

HENWICK: I agree. From the comic books, I definitely wanted to pull out that sort of very dry humor that she has, and that no bullshit New Yorker demeanor. We  keep that. And of course, as the clip shows, the clip that was released yesterday, we also have her signature white jumpsuit look. Not quite as superhero-y as the comics, it’s not spandex, but we give a lot of nods to the comic books.

JONES: Also, just to make a point, Danny Rand isn’t a superhero. Not yet, anyway. I think Danny Rand has a long way to go before he can earn the right to call himself the Iron Fist. He has a lot of things to really learn about himself and overcome.

HENWICK: He’s had this title thrust upon him, but in so many ways he’s still a kid.

JONES: He’s still a kid. He doesn’t know what to do with it, he’s got this huge responsibility, he’s got so many inner issues and inner torment that he has to deal with first before he can actually be responsible, and it’s very interesting to take that angle on it. It’s a really interesting angle that Scott Buck has created.

Is it possible you can relate any of your characters to what’s happening today? 

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Image via Marvel/Netflix

JONES: We look at the one percent of the one percent, and corporate corruption and corporate responsibility in the modern world, and as we know with our overlord Donald Trump, that’s very prevalent in this society. How much do corporations have impact on society? And what we actually look at in the show is the heroin epidemic of the city, and how corporations maybe actually fund the heroin epidemic, and what that means to society, and so we do address very real issues with the show as well as it is a superhero show. Also we address issues like, a twenty-five year-old - you know, where they hell are they at in their lives? They just left their childhood, their about to begin adulthood, they have no idea what they’re doing on this planet. There is so much existential crisis going on there, and Danny Rand really kind of emulates that, as well as having the responsibility to the Iron Fist. So he’s a complete livewire, a complete chaotic dude that’s in the middle of youth and adulthood.

You were saying something before about capturing the New York attitude. Do you guys live in the city? What did you do to get into that groove? Because it is a very specific tone and voice, I’d say.

HENWICK: Just a lot of research. I live in Brooklyn, in Greenpoint, which is a largely Polish community, but also a no bullshit community, I would like to say. Yeah, just researched it, and over the course of the filming, of course, we had a wonderful, wonderful crew and I’ve become very good friends with them.

JONES: I think you can’t help but live and work here and not feel how awesome the flavor of this city is. Especially in Brooklyn. Like how diverse it is, how just authentic it feels. Just living here for even like a month or two and working with people and socializing with people -

HENWICK: It changes you.

JONES: You just feel it, and you really feel it in the show as well. I fucking love this city. It’s got so much to offer.

Jessica, do you think Colleen is a character that girls should look up to? 

JONES: [laughs]

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Image via Netflix

HENWICK: I think that Colleen doesn’t want to be looked up to, and I think that’s exactly why you should look to her. She – I’ve spoken about this before –she, like so many of us, probably some of the people in this room, I’m certainly the same, uses things like self-deprecation and cynicism and wit as a shield to protect herself, because if you’re making the joke about yourself, no one else can make the joke about you. You preempt anything. And it’s a sad thing that we all do, and she meets Tom Hanks in Big, she meets someone who's completely –

JONES: The opposite

HENWICK: He’s the opposite. He’s so –

JONES: Naive, open.

HENWICK: Wide-eyed, and yeah, seemingly naive. I think he’s a lot more nuanced than what he appears to be, but he seems to be so open to the world, which is why I love Danny, because he’s so different from the brooding, other world-hating characters that we’ve come to expect.

JONES: And also I want to say, with regards to that question, is that I was thinking earlier today in the shower, my shower thought of the day was that this is actually a feminist television show. The female characters in Iron Fist are incredibly strong, incredibly unique, and they really hold the men up in that world. You’ve got characters like Colleen, Claire Temple played by Rosario Dawson, you’ve got Madame Gao, you’ve also got Jess Stroup playing Joy Meachum.

JONES: And they’re all really strong female roles in the show, and they’re the ones that hold the men up in our show. All the men in our show are falling apart. They need these women to hold them up, and you know, I don’t think that actually gets touched on enough, and it’s a really interesting perspective on this show, how many great female roles there are in this show.

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Image via Marvel/Netflix

HENWICK: Working with Rosario and creating the Colleen/Claire dynamic has been one of my favorite experiences working with any actor or actress. Being able to show audiences that, two women who support each other, and there’s no competition, I’m her sensei, I’m her teacher, but I’m also –

JONES: A sister.

HENWICK: I’m also like a sister to her. And she’s older than me, so it’s just like this weird –

JONES: And that’s the dynamic between the three of us as well, it’s like, behind Iron Fist - not even behind Iron Fist, but on Iron Fist’s side are these two diverse, wonderful, strong women, and I think that’s such a fucking great story to tell the world right now, you know? Because we need more stuff like that. God bless Netflix and Marvel for making these characters and making that statement with the show.

There’s been some concern over some of the Orientalist stereotypes in the source material, so I was wondering how you approached that while filming.

HENWICK: For me, when they approached me about Colleen, I was a little bit like, huh, do I want to play an Asian woman who does martial arts who’s a love interest? Do I want to do those three things? Because I’ve always shied away from it. In fact, I’ve shied away from playing Asian characters, if you look back I’m playing characters that have no relevance to my ethnicity. But I reached a stage last year where I said, I want to start telling Asian stories, I want a young Asian girl to go, oh my god, that reminds me of my relationship with my mom. So I had some concerns, and Jeph Loeb rang me and he said, “We’re going to take the stereotype, and we’re going to – we’re not going to avoid it, we’re going to inspect it.” For example, she is, I don’t know how many episodes you’ve seen, she’s a martial artist, she fights in fight cages, we’ve seen that before. What happens when you become addicted to that? What happens when you can only talk with your fists and you struggle to communicate on any other level and you’ve become addicted to fighting? So we’ve taken this stereotype and we’ve said, okay, what is the actual realism in it? You know? Which was interesting to me.

 I think Danny is different than the other Marvel street-level heroes because he does have money, and you mentioned this show kind of explores the one percent of the one percent. So how does that affect his approach and sort of justify him being a vigilante?

JONES: It’s difficult. Danny’s a very complex, nuanced character. Can you just hone in on the question so I can answer it more precisely?

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Image via Netflix

So I guess the fact that he does come from a privileged place -

JONES: Right, okay, so I see what you’re saying. The polar opposites. So Danny is full of polar opposites, and that for me is what makes Danny so interesting. You know, on one hand, he is trying to be this disciplined, spiritual warrior with this awesome responsibility. On the other hand, he is a kid that is suffering from immense trauma, suffers from a kind of form of PTSD because he lost his parents when he was ten years old, he’s been away from home in a place which is alien to him growing up, and he comes back to New York and he’s meant to be this billionaire head of a company, whilst also trying to have this responsibility, whilst also trying to claim back his identity and try to find out what it means to be a man, you know? So he’s constantly in the middle of these huge, massive conflicts, and it’s in those elements and it’s in that struggle which actually the character is really enjoyable to play and is very nuanced. And I think throughout the series, you find that Danny realizes that the world isn’t just black and white. It’s gray. And it’s being okay with that grayness, it’s being okay with being a billionaire titan of the industry, and also being a Buddhist and a spiritual warrior. You can be both things. The world isn’t black and white, and Danny’s journey is finding out about the grayness of it.

So you mentioned we’ve seen a little kind of like adapted Colleen look already. What were the conversations around approaching or adapting or circumventing the very traditional look of Iron Fist as a character?

JONES: Like I said earlier, I think Danny has a long way to go before he earns the title of being a superhero. What we see in the first season is Danny isn’t a superhero yet. He hasn’t earned the right to attain that title. He has a lot of individual things that he has to deal with before he can claim that identity. So in terms of costume, the first couple of episodes you see Danny kind of awkwardly fitting into suits, like he’s not used to this. It doesn’t feel right. But then he’s in regular clothes. It still doesn’t feel right. He’s trying to find his identity through clothes, and I think eventually throughout the series he kind of claims some kind of identity through his clothes, but really, I know what you’re trying to say here, but we’ve got a couple more seasons to go before we get to that point.

What were your favorite things about working with each other? 

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Image via Marvel/Netflix

JONES: I hated every second of it! Me and Jess were actually friends before we were cast, we worked on Game of Thrones together. We’ve known each other for about two years, and Jess was coming over to do the screen test, and I’d already been cast as Iron Fist, and Jess came around mine the night before the screen test and we worked and prepared the roles and we, you know, we rehearsed together. We went in, and we kind of just - we had a really great chemistry, and it’s been really, really nice to work with a friend and share this experience with someone I really admire and someone I really appreciate as a friend.

HENWICK: I also really like the way Finn smells.

JONES: Sage. I’m wearing sage.

Iron Fist will premiere on Netflix on March 17, 2017.

 

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