As portrayed by Andy Serkis, Ulysses Klaue made an impressive impact when he was introduced to movie audiences in Joss Whedon's The Avengers: Age of Ultron. Sure, he proved to be no match for the titular robot, having his arm swiftly chopped off with the swing of a blade, but audiences immediately became excited about the character's future prospects in the franchise. Now he's back on the big screen in Black Panther, but what has he been up to since we last saw him? Serkis himself filled us in when we caught up with him on the set of the Ryan Coogler-directed feature last year, telling us about the general chaos he has been generating. Said Serkis,
He's just basically been causing mayhem in the world, on minor and major levels. He's a smart guy in the sense that he's a businessman as well as an arms dealer. He manages to cover his tracks. He has a mercenary army that works with him in different locations all around the world and he's able to go down rabbit holes and appear in other places. He's got the smarts, but he's also a little whacked out.
When Black Panther was still in production at the start of last year, I joined a group of other film journalists to fly out to Atlanta, Georgia and visit the set -- and part of that experience included a sit-down with Andy Serkis. Part of the discussion included the query regarding what Ulysses Klaue has been doing since he was first introduced as part of the comic book movie franchise, and the actor revealed that having only one arm has in no way slowed down his dealings. The man may be a bit crazy, but he knows his business, and it's apparently been booming.
As we learned in The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ulysses Klaue is both an arms dealer and a thief, who happens to specialize in one particular area. He is one of the only people on the planet to actually see the African nation of Wakanda for what it really is, and his covert expeditions there have allowed him access to the previous metal known as Vibranium. It's because of this rare material that he winds up face-to-face with Ultron, and that's ends up not going so well... but beyond that things are evidently pretty good. He's managed to not only regularly escape authorities, but as we've seen in various Black Panther trailers, he's also successfully replaced his missing arm with a new, devastating weapon.
Andy Serkis is just one of the many big names we talked to on the Black Panther set -- a list that includes Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong'o, Martin Freeman, and Michael B. Jordan -- and we'll have plenty more from that experience coming your way in the coming days. It should all help you adequately prepare for the arrival of Marvel Studios' latest blockbuster, which is set to arrive in theaters on February 16th.
