Netflix’s Daredevil may have been unexpectedly cancelled back in 2018, but in the past few years, Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock has joined the MCU, making cameos here and there between his Spider-Man: No Way Home moment and his stint on She-Hulk. Ahead of the actor leading another show with Disney+’s Daredevil: Born Again, he’s part of the Echo cast. When CinemaBlend spoke to the January series’ director, Sydney Freeland, she shared with us how Cox contributed to Echo prior to filming his latest MCU appearance.
Echo primarily tells the story of Alaqua Cox’s Maya Lopez following the character’s introduction in Hawkeye, but the next of upcoming Marvel TV shows also leans into connections with Netflix’s Daredevil by having the likes of Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock and Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk interwoven in Maya’s storyline. During our interview with Freeland, she shared with us how Cox in particular influenced the production. In Freeland’s words:
I would say that Charlie and Vincent, I think there's a reason they got along so well in the Netflix series. They're both extremely thoughtful actors that cared deeply about their role. And, I think a perfect illustration of that is one, if not the first conversation with Charlie that we had was a question from him. And he said, ‘It's just been sort of eating at me. Like, if Daredevil is blind and Maya's deaf, how are they gonna communicate?’ And, we were all just sort of dumbfounded at that moment, cause that wasn't something we, and mind you we're already months in the prep on this thing, and it had never occurred to any of us. I'm very able-bodied and I'm not deaf. I'm not blind. And, and so it wasn't something that hadn’t occurred to me and it was like ‘Oh man, like I didn't think about this and so it really got us thinking and it sparked so many conversations just from that one simple question. But that's an example of how Charlie's approach is just extremely thoughtful.
Charlie Cox has lived with Matt Murdock/Daredevil ever since he was cast as the comic book character in May 2014. Despite the Netflix series initially ending its run after its third season, Cox has almost a decade of being known as the hero under his belt, so when he was approached for Echo, he knew the right questions to ask. As Freeland recalled, he had the production “dumbfounded” with the question about how Daredevil and Echo would operate in a fight sequence given Matt Murdock is blind and Maya Lopez is deaf. That inquiry actually “sparked so many questions,” according to the director, due to the fact that Cox is so in tune with Daredevil and a “thoughtful” actor as Freeland put it.
Similarly, during CinemaBlend’s interview with producer Richie Palmer, he called D’Onofrio and Cox “experts” with their characters, sharing that the Kingpin actor actually assisted in cracking “this story” in regards to the “big picture” and in terms of more detailed elements of his relationship with Maya Lopez in Echo. While what exactly unfolds between Echo, Daredevil and Wilson Fisk in the new Marvel series has yet to be seen, you can check out a sneak peek of the characters in the Echo trailer below:
Not unlike Netflix’s Daredevil, Echo is a TV-MA series and one that will be available to binge on both Disney+ and Hulu in full come January 9. Stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more exclusive interviews about the making of Echo.
