It didn’t take long for actor Chukwudi Iwuji to realize the High Evolutionary – the Marvel Comics villain he portrays Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 – was a bit crazy.
“From the first page of reading the script I was like, [nervous voice] Oh. Oh, okay, here we gohe told Polygon in a video interview.
And that was just the movie script. In Marvel Comics, the High Evolutionary (real name Herbert Wyndham) is a man who did mad science on a magical mountain, made a cow person servant who was the midwife at the birth of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, and once de-evolved himself in a pile of primordial sludge on purpose.
Iwuji said he had to walk a fine line to give the High Evolutionary menacing seriousness while simultaneously having the bombastic presence of a true comic book mad scientist. “It was written in such a way that it was clear that I had to substantiate it,” he said, “but also don’t be afraid of the theatricality of the character. And don’t just fear it, embrace it.”
A veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre, Iwuji naturally looked to Shakespeare’s most dramatic kings – Henry IV, Richard III, Lear – as leading stars.
“[The High Evolutionary] is grand. People call him ‘Sire’. He walks around in a beautiful tapered, almost Issey Miyake-esque purple suit,” Iwuji said. And he is adored by those around him. So [laughs]the greatness was very clear to me from the start.
to Iwuji, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3‘s sets were just a different kind of costumes. The High Evolutionary has its own flagship, of course, and in that flagship is its grandiose workspace of gleaming red surfaces, a huge desk on a pedestal made of floating cubes, and a huge window for the man playing god to look down on all his animal creations.
“Beth Mickel designed a great set,” said Iwuji. “And for me, just walking into it [felt like] “This is my den.” It was really there, the space, the grandeur of it, it’s like putting on a suit – you put on a suit and suddenly you know how to walk and how you’re going to carry yourself. It’s the same when you walk into a real room. You realize what your real relationship to space is. It’s a gift to do it that way. It made life a lot easier to play with a really practical set.”
I think we can all agree that every supervillain deserves a good lair – how else are they going to get enough scenery to chew on?