When Alfred Molina was first invited to reprise his role as the villain Otto Octavius in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” – the upcoming third installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Spider-Man movies, directed by Tom Holland – he said he was told to keep it quiet.
“When we shot the film, we were all under orders not to talk about it because it had to be a big secret,” Molina said laughing during an interview with Variety about his role in the Oscar-nominated ‘Promising Young Woman’. ‘But you know, it’s all over the internet. I actually described myself as the worst kept secret in Hollywood! “
Instead, Molina not only confirmed his involvement in “No Way Home”, he happily described his experience making the film and returned to a role he first played in Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man 2” in 2004. .
“It was great,” he said. “It was really interesting to go back after 17 years to play the same role, as in the intervening years I now have two chins, a braid, crow’s feet and a somewhat unreliable lower back.”
When the actor Jon Watts, the director of ‘No Way Home’, asked how the film would bring Doc Ock back – since, as he noted, ‘I died’ – Molina said the director told him, ‘In this universe, no one really dies. “
In “Spider-Man 2”, Molina played scientist Otto Octavius, who was poised to mentor Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker when a lab accident turns him into the murderous Doctor Octopus, or Doc Ock for short – so named after the four. mechanical arms fused into his back. On the orders of Harry Osborn (James Franco), the tentacle, unhinged Doc Ock’s obsession with perfecting his experimental fusion reactor pits him against Peter / Spider-Man and Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst), putting all of New York City in danger. In the movie’s climactic scene, Peter appeals to Otto’s good side and drowns himself and his reactor in the East River before the city is destroyed.
In their early conversations, Molina said, Watts told him that the film will pick up Doc Ock’s story from “that moment” in the river, which in a franchise with multiverses, time travel and disparate timelines … seems plausible enough.
Molina’s concerns were more practical. He said he asked Watts how they would deal with being older than the 2004 film at the age of 67.
‘He just looked at me and said,’ Did you see what we were doing with Bob Downey Jr. and Sam Jackson have done? Molina said, laughing. In 2016’s ‘Captain America: Civil War’, Marvel Studios used CGI to direct Robert Downey Jr. unravel to look like it did in 1991; and in 2019’s “Captain Marvel,” also set in the 1990s, an aging Samuel L. Jackson played a younger version of his character, Nick Fury.
Molina also cited Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” as an example of digital aging – and its limitations.
“They made Robert De Niro’s face younger, but when he was fighting he looked like an older man,” Molina said. ‘He looked like an old man! That’s what I was worried about doing it again. “
“I don’t have the same physicality that I had 17 years ago,” he continued. “That’s just a fact.”
However, Molina realized that the nature of the role would save him. “I remembered then that it is the tentacles that do all the work!”
He sat up in his chair. “My basic physical movement as Doc Ock, as an actor, is just this,” he said, looking intensely at the Zoom camera and making a threatening noise. “I just do that a lot, and the poor do all the killing, hitting and breaking. I’m just going – “he looked angry again -” with a kind of mean look on my face. “
“It was fantastic.”
Neither Sony Pictures nor Marvel Studios, which co-produce “Spider-Man: No Way Home”, have confirmed Molina’s return, but news of his casting leaked last year, along with reports that Jamie Foxx will also be appearing as Electro. the bad guy. he starred in “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”. Later, Zendaya – another “Spider-Man” protagonist – seemingly confirmed Molina’s casting during a conversation with Carey Mulligan for Variety‘s Actors on Actors series.
Molina and Foxx’s casting would unite the three generations of Spider-Man movies: the Maguire / Raimi cycle, the Marc Webb / Andrew Garfield episodes and the latest Spider-Mans, starring Holland and directed by Watts.
“No Way Home” is currently scheduled for a Christmas release on December 17, 2021.