‘Daredevil’s’ Vincent D’Onofrio Knows That Kingpin Will Eventually Win the War

The war is on again–on Netflix, that is. And once again, Hell’s Kitchen is the battleground. After a two-and-a-half year wait, Season 3 of Marvel’s Daredevil–the streaming service’s flagship vigilante super-show–is back. And not only is the Man Without Fear once again stalking the Manhattan city streets on behalf of justice, the notorious kingpin of crime Wilson Fisk is out for vengeance.

Vincent D’Onofrio is back in a big way in Season 3, playing the large and in charge (even when he’s behind bars) Fisk full-time after sitting out most of 2016’s Season 2. The return not only refocuses a broken Matt Murdock, still reeling from the pounding he took when that building fell on him at the end of last year’s Defenders mini-series, but it also sharpens the series. Wilson Fisk is back and once again, the conflict between vigilante and criminal feels dangerously personal.

The show’s called Daredevil, but D’Onofrio’s Fisk is quite possibly the show’s co-lead, a captivating villain dripping with raw emotion. With the long-awaited Season 3 finally being streamed across the country, Decider got the chance to get inside the man who gets inside Daredevil’s head.

DECIDER: What was it like jumping back into the role of Wilson Fisk after so many years away?

VINCENT D’ONOFRIO: It’s just so great, I like playing the part so much. It’s so interesting to try and get away with certain things. You know, that Jeph Loeb over at Marvel television, he always hires interesting writers, just really good at what they do. It’s always something to look forward to. It’s one of those things where you just really look forward to reading the next script and try to figure out how to play it and get away with it. The answer to your question is, I really like playing Fisk, so it’s fun.

That really comes through on social media where you’ve been sharing some of the comic book art that inspired you. I’m a huge comic book fan, so seeing you tweeting with the legendary Bill Sienkiewicz was amazing. How does this comic art affect your performance?

The first season was Mack stuff, [Daredevil cover artist] David Mack. And I formed a relationship with him and his art inspired me. I met [Mack and Sienkiewicz] early on in the first season. The two of them came to set together and I met them both. I had been studying the Kingpin arc and obviously the comics, and the Daredevil, Punisher, and Spidey comics. And so just by coincidence, Jeph Loeb walked up to me one day, the head of Marvel [Television], and said, “There’s two artists here I’d like you to meet.” And so I met them. I’d only had a few comics as a kid. I wasn’t that big into them–a few of them I was, but not many. But just by my studies, I recognized both of them and by coincidence, they were my favorites of the ones I was studying at the time.

So David was very helpful the first season. In the third season, Bill and I would talk a lot and there would just be certain images that made–I don’t want to talk too specifically about which ones they are, but I wanted to know if he could send me images like that that he had laying around his studio or whatever. Just a couple. He ended up sending me a box of stuff and it was fantastic. It was helpful in so many ways, not only emotional ways, but also aesthetic ways and physical ways as well. So I kept them very quiet and secret and brought them to my dressing room, where I was working, and they were inspiring. I’m very thankful to those guys and they’re really something. I think of them as up there like [science fiction artist Frank] Frazetta. I admire their ability to be so unique and emotional in their art. It’s fantastic. Also, [Kingpin cover artist] Jeff Dekal. He’s also a favorite of mine, also very good I think.

For much of the first half of the season, you spend a lot of time in either a prison or a very luxurious penthouse cage. Did only being in one specific location affect the way that you performed Fisk?

Yeah, the whole thing. Wearing the prison garb and being in handcuffs the whole time, or shackles. Yeah, those little dingy cells, you know, it’s not the most uplifting place. All that contributes, even down to the kind of shoes that you wear in prison. It’s not a whole lot of fun, but it helps.

Slight SPOILER ALERT, readers, for this question: in Episode 5, that penthouse prison hosts a theatrical retelling of Benjamin Poindexter/Bullseye’s origin. The black and white sequence is unlike anything the show’s done before. Was that a super different experience?

Yeah it was. It was kind of approached pretty much the way scenes would fall in Fisk’s head, and so your performance is trying to tell the story correctly so it has to match the visuals. Yes, it was very different from what we’ve been doing on the show with previous directors, sure, but still interesting and emotional and sometimes people stylize stuff. If you can ground it into some kind of realistic tone it can be fun to play.

Wilson Fisk’s relationship with Poindexter in general is fascinating as well. Was Wilson Bethel at all intimidated by sharing all these scenes with you, as the new Daredevil villain acting opposite the original?

No, Wilson [Bethel] is very talented doing him–his take on his character, which is pretty committed, and doing what he was doing as far as, you know, an actor. We did have a good time. It fluctuated from being very intense to emotional to just plain fun. The dynamic between the two of them is kind of this awful kind of dynamic. There’s like a chemistry between these two men, but Fisk is using that chemistry to manipulate him, even though it’s a real chemistry. So there’s kind of this awful thing going on. It’s just a terrible thing to do to somebody. But it works story-wise. I think that even though he does have a real chemistry with him, he needs to use him and doesn’t care if anything happens to him. But that makes a very intense day on set.

Fisk obviously has a deep relationship with Matt Murdock. Going into Season 3, what do you think their dynamic is at this point and what does Matt Murdock bring out of Wilson Fisk? He seems to be the guy who pushes Wilson Fisk’s buttons harder than anyone.

I would say that it’s a relationship that’s ongoing, that’s never gonna go away. I do believe from my point of view, from the way I play Fisk, and the character of Kingpin in the Marvel universe, I think that Fisk is going to get what he wants and Daredevil won’t be there to stop him. I think that even though he may lose the battle sometimes, he’s not gonna lose the war. He’s gonna win the war. I think the idea of that and how Daredevil feels about Kingpin, I think that that’s what keeps the story going. I think that there has to be someone around to try and wrangle the biggest and the baddest.

You also get to play Matt Murdock’s version of Kingpin, the one that’s in his head. Did you approach playing Matt Murdock’s version of Wilson Fisk differently than how you just play Wilson Fisk?

Yeah. I mean basically, Charlie [Cox] and I had to make sure that we were thinking the same about the dialogue and what Daredevil was thinking at the time so I could then match that. Charlie and I, we work really well together. He’s a great actor and great person to be with on a set. He’s very committed and wants things to be done the correct way. That’s always nice to be around somebody like that. So we would discuss all that and then I would say the only other thing that I did is that the voice that I use for Fisk is a very kind of emotional voice–it comes from an emotional place. But what I did in Charlie’s mind, in Daredevil’s mind stuff, I just sped the cadence up and I made it more jarring, like stabbing at him with words with a quicker pace. So that’s very different from what he’s like in real life, or so to speak.

Wilson Fisk has been in your head for around three years. Is there anything you learned about Fisk from playing him most recently that you maybe didn’t know when you shot Season 1 or came back for those few episodes in Season 2? 

[Season 3] felt almost like a continuation of Season 1 for me because I was in so little of [Season 2]. I’m sure that the crew feels differently and the main actors on the show feel differently about it, but that’s always how I felt about it. So Season 3 was nice because I know that Fisk is an especially strong character. I think two different writers have written him, and the writing crews. And Jeph Loeb hired these two talented people, Steven DeKnight in the first season. I think Steven is probably one of the best writers I’ll ever work for. And then Erik [Oleson], who’s just this guy who created an incredible arc of three tying stories over thirteen episodes. It’s just phenomenal. And I think, I know it’s a strong character to play and a good writer can write the hell out of that part and that’s always a good feeling as an actor, that you’re gonna stay involved in something that is indeed very interesting and inspiring for others to try and grasp so that’s what I’ve learned the most as an actor from it, that it’s just a phenomenal character to play.

Stream Marvel's Daredevil on Netflix