INTO THE WOODS

Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) and friends await trouble (below).

Lauren Ridloff (The Walking Dead) says her character, Makkari, “is a fast and fierce fighter who runs with her heart leading. She is bored to death on this little planet called Earth, but it doesn’t diminish her love for art, literature and justice. And the people behind those creations.” Ridloff is Deaf and so is Makkari, a first for an MCU character. In the comics, Makkari was male, and not Deaf. “I believe the evolution of Makkari came as a response to the ongoing conversation about representation on the screen,” says Ridloff. “Black Panther felt like a call to action and look at what has emerged since then! If you think about it, it’s stunning how quickly something radical can become something very necessary and natural. To make those swaps from a conventional comic-book hero to a real-world hero feels very natural to me. This is the direction the world is headed in, so why not have comic books follow suit?”

Gilgamesh is the “strongest warrior of the Eternals” according to the person who plays him; Don Lee is a Korean-American actor perhaps best known for his role in South Korean zombie actioner Train To Busan. “He’s very mighty and he can be in the highest ranks of the MCU’s strongest characters,” says Lee. “At the same time, he is fiercely loyal and protective of his fellow Eternals.” Having lived in Montana and Texas, Lee says he was drawn to Zhao’s films like The Rider. “I felt that Eternals is going to be an MCU movie like no other, with both the grand scale audiences expect, and the impact and beauty of Chloé’s character-driven movies.”

Game Of Thrones and Bodyguard star Richard Madden rounds out the superpowered cast as Ikaris, the