'Hawkeye' costume designer says Kingpin casting was so secret he only met Vincent D'Onofrio the day of filming
- "Hawkeye's" costume designer told Insider that he met Kingpin actor D'Onofrio the day of filming.
- Michael Crow said that the casting was kept secret from him until halfway through filming.
"Hawkeye" costume designer told Insider that he wasn't told about Vincent D'Onofrio's involvement in the show until halfway through filming, such is the level of Marvel's secret-keeping.
D'Onofrio shocked viewers when he reprised his role as Kingpin in the recent Marvel Disney+ show about the archer Avenger, Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). The 62-year-old actor portrayed the iconic Marvel villain originally in Netflix's "Daredevil" before it was cancelled in 2018.
Since then, fans have been anticipating both D'Onofrio and his co-star Charlie Cox making their way onto the big screen to star in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Earlier this month, both actors starred in projects directly linked to the MCU, with Cox reprising his role as Matt Murdoch in the newest "Spider-Man" movie and D'Onofrio appearing in the final two episodes of "Hawkeye."
Speaking to Insider, Michael Crow, the costume designer for "Hawkeye," said he was also kept from the secret casting for a pretty long time.
"I didn't know until about maybe halfway through filming," Crow said. "I think in the original script it was scripted as another character. Like something from the [Matt] Fraction [Hawkeye] comic books, but not Kingpin. I started asking questions about what we wanted to do, how do we wanna approach it? And I got an immediate phone call back from Trinh Tran [Marvel Studios Producer]. And she just said: 'We'll talk about that a little bit later. We're not ready to talk about that yet, but it's not gonna be that [the character from the script]. It's a big secret.'"
Crow continued: "Once I was told that Vincent was coming back, we had about two months to create costumes for Kingpin."
Crow added that he did not meet D'Onofrio until the day of filming. The "Hawkeye" costume designer said: "We did a lot of long-distance fittings because [D'Onofrio} was working on another show in New York at the time. I didn't see him until the very last minute and I mean, he is truly a lovely gentleman. A pleasure to work with."
Whilst Crow was unable to say whether this Kingpin is the same character from "Daredevil," during the interview, he did say that the plan for Kingpin's costume for "Hawkeye" was to move away from his polished look in the Netflix series.
"Vincent was integral in creating the character and a lot of the ideas stemmed from what he wanted to do with the character and you know, things that he had always wanted to take directions," Crow said. "He wanted to approach the character as a little more like down and out and grittier than he had previously been presented in the other show."
Crow also said that Kingpin's costumes were inspired directly from the comics. D'Onofrio told Comicbook.com that the Hawaiian shirt look was his idea, taken from the "Amazing Spider-Man: Family Business" comic.
The full season of "Hawkeye" is available on Disney+.