No./13 INSIDE THAT ETERNALS CAMEO
Director Chloé Zhao on the surprise appearance of Eros at the very end of Eternals
If you’ve seen Marvel’s latest, and had the wisdom to stick around past the credits, you’ll know that a brand-new Eternal was introduced. You’ll also know that, in rather a big surprise, pop crooner and sometime actor Harry Styles is playing said Eternal: Eros, brother of Thanos.
If it was a surprise for you, it made total sense to director Chloé Zhao. “For me, it was a package deal,” she tells Empire. “I never once said, ‘Here’s the character, let’s find the actor.’ It’s gotta be Harry. And then we do Eros. That’s how I pitched it to Kevin [Feige].” Though only appearing briefly in the dying minutes of the film, Eros (and by association his megalomaniacal purple brother) left a big impression in Zhao’s mind; just his appearance raises more questions than answers. “What influence could Eros have had on the inhabitants of Titan?” Zhao asks, rhetorically. “And how has that affected Thanos?”
In the comics, Eros is very much on the scene during the Infinity saga; the brothers have something of a Cain-and-abel dynamic. “There’s a quite beautiful, heartbreaking influence that Eros had on Thanos [in the comics],” Zhao says. “I love Thanos as a character, it makes my imagination go crazy. Has Eros had anything to do with [Thanos’ beliefs]? I don’t know, but it gets my imagination going.” Where Eros will fit into the wider universe is the bigger question. “He’s just been in space all along. And Arishem is looking for him,” Zhao hints. As someone once put it: destiny arrives all the same.