Doctor Strange is the latest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, telling the story of world-famous neurosurgeon Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), who is as arrogant as he is gifted in an operating room. After a horrific car accident robs him of the use of his hands, changing his life forever, he is forced to look for hope in a mysterious enclave in Nepal, where he discovers a battle against unseen dark forces bent on destroying our reality and must learn to use his newly acquired magical powers to defend the world.
During a conference at the film’s Beverly Hills press junket, co-stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Mads Mikkelsen (“Kaecilius”), along with director Scott Derrickson and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, talked about why now is the right time to bring Doctor Strange into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, having to push the start of filming back, in order to get Benedict Cumberbatch for the role, the challenges of making these films feel fresh, feeling like a giddy child in the full costume, why this villain is the hero of his own story, the similarities and differences between Stephen Strange and Sherlock Holmes, designing so many trippy sequences, and when Doctor Strange will return to the MCU.
Question: Doctor Strange made his first appearance in “Strange Tales” in July of 1963, Issue 110. Kevin and Scott, for a character that has been part of the Marvel Universe for so long, why was now the right time to bring him into the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
KEVIN FEIGE: Well, we’ve been talking about it for many, many, many, many years, and sometimes things just work out. Timing often, particularly in the cinematic universe, works out well for us. It will be our 14th film within the MCU, and we always say we have to push the boundaries, we have to keep surprising people, and we have to keep making them unique and different, and certainly, this movie and this character fits all of that. And also, tapping into other dimensions and tapping into that supernatural realm of the Marvel Comic Universe is going to come in handy, as we move forward throughout the Cinematic Universe. So, the timing was perfect.
SCOTT DERRICKSON: Kevin is the one who green lights the movie, so he’s the official answer. As a fan of the comics, and growing up with the comics, Doctor Strange was a product of the 60s and was a breath of fresh air into the world of comics, at that time. And as a fan watching movies, I felt ready for some new, daring, weird left turns in the world of comic books and the MCU. I think Guardians of the Galaxy was that. I was so pleasantly surprised when I saw how bold that movie was. So, when I came in to meet on Doctor Strange, my approach was, “Let’s make this as weird in the MCU as the comic book was in the comic book world in the 60s,” and that’s what we tried to do.
In order to get Benedict Cumberbatch in this role, you had to push the start date for filming with this film. Why was that important for you to do?
DERRICKSON: When Kevin and I talked about who we wanted in the role, we landed on Benedict pretty quickly and just felt like he was right. I flew to London, met with him and explained the movie. I think I had some of my concept art, at that point, and Benedict really wanted to do it, but he was doing Hamlet in the theater in London. We were a summer release movie, so it wasn’t going to work. And I came back and met with a bunch of other actors, who were good actors, but I just felt like it had to be Benedict. And Kevin, to his credit, agreed, so we pushed the schedule for him.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH: I’m very glad they did. It’s incredibly flattering. It’s a weight of responsibility, as well, but it’s a great motivator to try to do a good job and fulfill the promise they’ve given to you. It’s a good thing. It’s a very good place to start from.
We’re eight years into the MCU now, which started with Iron Man in 2008. What are the challenges in making these films film fresh, so that they don’t feel conventional?
DERRICKSON: The challenge was to try to make a movie that is as visually progressive by movie standards, as the Ditko art was in the 60s. Our primary source of inspiration was the early Stan Lee/Steve Ditko comics, and that artwork is still progressive. If you look a lot of the panels in the comics, that was our primary source of inspiration, and visual effects had just caught up to where we could do some of the things that we did in this movie. The trick of it was to not hold back and to push ourselves as far as possible to do original things with the set pieces. I remember, in some of my early meetings, saying that my goal was for every set piece in the movie to be the weirdest set piece in any other movie, but each one of them would be uniquely odd and unusual and refreshing. And that comes out of movie fandom, more than anything else, because that’s what I want to see. I want to see event movies that use visual effects and visual effect sequences for more than just mass destruction. I wanted to get more creative with them and find new ways to do them, and give me, as an audience member, some kind of visceral experience that’s unique. The movies that do that are memorable and change the way that you feel about cinema, in general. I don’t know if we achieved that, but it was certainly the goal to push ourselves into something new and something fresh, so that the audience would be genuinely surprised in moments and get their money’s worth.
Mads, in the last ten years, you’ve been in a James Bond movie, Star Wars: Rogue One and Doctor Strange. Do you ever pinch yourself?
MADS MIKKELSEN: Basically, for half of my life, I was reading comic books, and the other half, I was watching Bruce Lee. So, when Scott was pitching this story to me, 10 minutes into the pitch, he said, “There’s a lot of Kung Fu and flying stuff.” And I said, “ Whoa, rewind to the Kung Fu bit. I’m on!” It’s a childhood dream coming through. It’s just amazing that at the age of 108, I get the chance to fly around.
Benedict, when you got all decked out with costume and the cloak and you looked in the mirror, for the first time, what did you think?
CUMBERBATCH: I was giddy, like a child at Halloween. When I saw it, for the first time, Alex Byrne, our brilliant costume designer, who’s done a few of these films went, “Oh, you’re having as superhero moment, aren’t you?” And I went, “Yeah, I think I am.” It really was the penny drop moment for me. This film had lots of alluring qualities and lots of things made me really want to go to it, but in particular, what Scott and Kevin were pitching to me with is his trajectory and his origin story and where he was going within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The journey he goes on was supremely important to me. There are great qualities of drama, but also great humor amongst that profundity and oddness, and unique weirdness. So, when I first had that moment, I really was quite giddy. I really did end up giggling. And then, the second time it really hit home was near the end of the main body of the shoot. We were in New York and we were on 5th Avenue, and there were as many paparazzi as there was crew. It was getting a little bit surreal, and we were running down 5th Avenue, jumping to fly, and there was the Empire State Building in the same eye line, and it was just a moment of magic to think about the men and women who first crafted these comics on the floors of some of those buildings, in that town, and there I was playing on it.
DERRICKSON: I have the video on my phone, and I’ve never sent it to anybody but Benedict. It was this spontaneous thing, when Benedict said, “There’s a comic book store right there.” And he was in full costume when he said, “We have to go in! We should, shouldn’t we?” I said, “I’ll film it. It’ll just be us.” And we had been getting ready to shoot. So, I put the camera on him, and then he introduced himself and said, “Okay, I’m about to go into this comic book store.” I followed him in and the people who were there couldn’t believe that it was Doctor Strange, and he got a couple of Doctor Strange comics.
CUMBERBATCH: I didn’t have any money to buy any comics, but I offered my services, if the film didn’t work out, to come and stock the shelves for them. That would be a bit heartbreaking. But, that was a magic moment, no pun intended. It was very special. It was the last place we were starting the last shot, and there was that comic book store. It was incredible.
Mads, you’ve played a villain in a Bond film and you’ve played Hannibal, so you’ve done these really iconic villainous characters who relish their villainy, but here you play a character who, from his perspective, is the hero who’s trying to save the world. How did you approach this role?
MIKKELSEN: I always play all characters as the hero. I think we have to look at it that way. I think the key to any good villain, which was very clear, from the beginning, in this script, is that they have a point. There is a point. Even Doctor Strange believes that I have a point. That’s the key to a good villain. You have to have something the audience identifies with, so that he doesn’t just go ballistic and say, “I’m going to take over the world because I can and it’s fun!” No. There has to be a reason that makes sense. Obviously, it has to be in the script, and Scott was on that page, so we tried to make him a man who believes in what he’s talking about, a little like a demagogue who believes, utterly, in every word he says.
Benedict, the key to Doctor Strange, in the beginning, is his arrogance and his confidence. He’s the smartest guy in the room, and then he’s humbled by what he goes through. Is that like playing Sherlock Holmes, or is it completely different?
CUMBERBATCH: Well, I’d say that’s all still going on, to be honest. No, I’d say it’s slightly different. In the Venn diagram of similarities, there is the cross-over of clever and arrogant and workaholic. Strange is a materialist and he’s egocentric, but he’s got charm and he’s witty. He’s liked by his colleagues. He’s had relationships with them. He’s not this outsider who’s a sociopathic asexual obsessive, like Sherlock is. There’s a world of difference. Strange lives in New York and eats bagels, every now and again. He’s a man of the world, as opposed to Sherlock, who isn’t.
Benedict, in the movie, Doctor Strange goes to The Ancient One to find meaning in what his life has become and learn from their expertise. Who is the one person, for you, that you’re always striving to get to their level of expertise?
CUMBERBATCH: Wow, I wish there was one. That would simplify my answer. The truth is, I get to work with a whole cast of them, on almost every job, but this job, in particular, was extraordinary. Everyone on it was helping me raise my game, at every level. Tilda has to tread this incredible line between ancient and wise, and yet ever youthful, as she is, and just incredibly now and present, and not something old and fussy, and just doing it with grace and charm and the good nature that all of the cast of this had. I’ve worked with Chiwetel [Ejiofor] before, but I got to watch him construct Mordo and see the complexity of his journey come to fruition. And [Mads] complains about being 100, but he moves like a 20-year-old dreams of moving. He’s really just the most absurd athlete, but also the most understated and supreme gentleman, who is always trying to make sure you’re all right and that you’re craft is all right, and that you’re not getting hit in the face or hurt. That’s not always the case, in fight scenes. And I’ve known Benny [Wong] for awhile, and I adore Wong. I think the world is going to love that character, and it was a master stroke on his part. There are people that I get to work with, every day, on a job like this, headed by a director (Scott Derrickson) and a mastermind (Kevin Feige) who both know their craft, inside out, and I feel safe in the hands of. The list could go on for a long time. I haven’t touched on my school days yet. I’m very lucky. I’ve worked with some truly inspiring people.
There are some very trippy sequences in this movie. How were those developed and designed, and was ever a point where you thought you might be going a bit too far?
FEIGE: I think there were a lot of those points, but we just kept pushing forward, and our amazing effects team did a great job.
DERRICKSON: Because we had moved the schedule for Benedict, we had a shorter post-production period than we wanted, but, to Kevin and Louis D’Esposito’s credit, we hired more vendors to start, all at once, than you normally would have, so we had a lot of the stuff coming in, all at the same time. One of the most creatively rewarding parts of the whole process was to try to think about not just weird and bizarre images, but also what can’t be done. The final sequence of the movie was the result of me just thinking, “Well, what can’t you do?” And so, we designed the scene and would storyboarded things, and then work with the pre-vis team to figure out how it looked, and then we figured out how to make it. It was the same thing with the mind trip scene. It was about drawing out every single shot, and some of it being impossible to do. The result was that the visual effects vendors had to sometimes help us figure out how to do it because it is unprecedented and it hasn’t been done before. Some of our ideas didn’t work. Every day, I got up for work and thought that somebody was going to come knock on my door and say, “You’ve gotta back off. This is just getting too weird.” But, it never happened. Marvel was really completely behind the idea of trying to push the boundaries of what a set piece intent-ful movie can be.
In the comic book, there is a story arc about the Illuminati. Will that be making a presence, in any of the future films in the MCU?
FEIGE: What’s fun about the Illuminati is certain characters interacting with other certain characters. I don’t know about that particular storyline, but certainly some of those characters, you will see together on screen in the next Avengers film.
The end of the film says that Doctor Strange will return. Where will you go next, with this character?
FEIGE: Just taking one step at time, he puts on the cloak again early next year in Avengers: Infinity War.
Benedict, how long do you see yourself wanting play Stephen Strange?
CUMBERBATCH: Let’s get this film out first. I just want to be present now and just want to enjoy today. I really, really do. We’re bringing this film to the world, properly, for the first time, and I’m so excited for that. I can’t wait to share this moment.
Doctor Strange opens in theaters on November 4th.
