MIKE COLTER
Harlem’s hero faces new challenges in Luke Cage season two
Meet the man under the hoodie as Luke Cage returns for a second season of Harlem-rumbling action.
It’s already dark out when Mike Colter, softly spoken and charming, joins us to chat. We drag chairs up to the end of a long wooden table, in a tall room directly above where he’s been filming a fight scene for hours. He looks exhausted. “Four days of stunt stuff!” he exclaims. “But the season has been really good, so hopefully it’ll translate. There’s a lot of great villain narratives and lots of different storylines.”
The character of Luke Cage first appeared in Marvel comics in 1972. In 2015 he appeared in the series Jessica Jones with Colter in the role, who a year later headlined his own show, becoming Marvel’s first black superhero lead. This 2018 series sees Luke return to Harlem after the events of The Defenders. Despite the fantastical circumstances of that super team-up (dragon bones granting resurrection powers to an ancient criminal cult: remember that?), Luke will find himself facing very real opponents at street level. “I think it’s the strongest Luke Cage season, personally," adds Colter. What else can he tell us? After The Defenders, where do we find Luke Cage?
Luke comes back for a purpose. He’s finding his way in Harlem. People know who he is, so he’s like, “I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do. Everybody knows my abilities.” He has to stop Mariah, who’s still out there. How can he protect the people of Harlem? Everybody in this part of the city loves him. Harlem is a pretty big place with a lot of people. He’s a celebrity there and that’s a strange feeling. Does that reflect your own experience as a TV star?
Sometimes I go to places and people will call me my character name, so that’s kind of odd. The difference for me is that I don’t really revel in it as much as Luke does! I never try to draw attention to myself; I go out of my way to find places I can go where people don’t know me. It’s easier that way. Some people travel with “entourages” but it’s me and maybe one other person when I go some place. That’s just the way I am. I’m a person who likes to just think and do what I want to do. Are we going to see a lot of action in the new season?
There’ll be an opportunity to have some really cool fight scenes. Season two now is a gruelling shoot. In the first season I asked for more action… Now we’ve got more action than I expected! I’m like, “Okay, that’s enough! [Laughs] Do we have to have an action sequence every episode?!” We shoot for two days for every action sequence, and it only lasts two or three minutes on-screen. It’s difficult to do a TV show where you have a lot of action in it, because there’s so little time to prep. Films, they have months to get the choreography down right, and they send the actors away to do stunt training. When they come on and do it, it’s really worked out. But we had a warehouse sequence which had so many different stunt guys coming in, and I had never seen the pre-vis. We just stepped in. And your muscle memory’s not there! Lucy Liu directed an episode. Did she bring the action or the drama?
She brings a little bit of both. She understood angles and how to shoot stunt sequences – and for the dramatic aspect of the script, she was able to approach it as an actress. She’s got a lot of experience in that regard, and it showed. The crew loved her. She’s very easy to get along with. Misty has a bionic arm now. She’s a superhero too! How does that complicate things?
She’s less frail. Somebody getting a bionic arm… I mean, there’s all kinds of options there! She’s able to do more with that. But the first thing is she still doesn’t know how to use it. I think that’s a part of her season, learning to use the arm. Luke Cage had to learn to use his powers too, and learn to hit people without killing them. He learns to pull back on his power, and he learns to harness his energy, and different fighting styles. I still have all the super strength and we will actually explore more this season about what his abilities are, and I think it’s going to look cool. People don’t seem to get tired of seeing bullets bounce off of someone! Is Luke still in his hoodie?
Luke has changed wardrobe a few times this season, which I’m happy to say! Because I love the hoodie, but we started shooting in summer. I was really looking forward to that, but I’m wearing a hoodie. It’s a heavy hoodie. It’s made for cold weather. No matter what I did, I never was dressed properly. I was in a hoodie and even if it was night-time, it was 85% humidity. I’m pouring sweat. And the minute I got to change into something else, it gets cold. I’m not kidding you. T-shirt? I’m cold. I’m like, “Okay, give me the hoodie back!” Then I’m in a suede jacket – it’s not breathing. It doesn’t matter what I’m wearing, I’m inappropriately dressed. Indoor or outdoor, it’s always the same [laughs].