Marvel’s Daredevil Season One Preview 

WARNING: Marvel’s Daredevil Spoilers

Meet your next TV obsession. Marvel’s Daredevil is dark, violent and fascinating.

The comic book turned Netflix series is going to keep you busy for the near future. Once you start watching, you’re not going to want to stop. According to Executive Producer (and Head of Marvel Television) Jeph Loeb, that’s pretty much the point.

Jeph Loeb: “The Netflix magic if I can be so bold to try to distill it down to anything, is that because they came along with this concept of being able to drop 13 shows at one time so that this term that we didn’t have a couple years ago — which is binge watching – they have now figured out a way to create a story event. And that’s really what we wanted for people to be able to do. The idea that come April 10 at 12:01 a.m., you are now going to be able to have a reason not to go to work.”

While the superheroes that make up The Avengers continue to live large on the big screen (Age of Ultron is due out in just a few weeks); Marvel has the opportunity to do something special with its epic small screen drama that tells the story of Matt Murdock, blind lawyer by day, fearless defender by night.

Jeph: “[The Avengers] are here to save the universe. What we wanted to be able to do is just move over a few blocks and down a few avenues and there’s an area called Hell’s Kitchen which is very different than the world of Tony Stark. And instead we could have heroes that are street-level heroes that were there to save the neighborhood.”

Hell’s Kitchen is in New York City, where the series is shot. Executive Producer and Showrunner, Steven S. DeKnight, says you can add Manhattan to the cast list.

Steven S. DeKnight: “We all agreed that New York was such an important character in this. I don’t think the show would have turned out nearly as well if we weren’t shooting in New York. It has a feel that you just cannot get anywhere else. We would get pictures from our location manager — Frank Corvino — and we’d just be giddy with joy about these locations that were just stunning. And some of them beautiful stunning and some of them stunning in the beauty of the decay that we were looking for that harkens back to the films of the ‘70s that we really drew a lot of inspiration from with French Connection and Dog Day Afternoon and Taxi Driver.”

TV Goodness was able to join a round table of writers and reporters who talked to Loeb and DeKnight as well as costars Charlie Cox, Rosario Dawson, Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson about this much-anticipated project.

The Synopsis

Blinded as a young boy but imbued with extraordinary senses, Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) fights against injustice by day as a lawyer, and by night as the Superhero “Daredevil” in modern day Hell’s Kitchen, New York City.

The Actors

Charlie Cox — Matt Murdock/Daredevil

On Matt Murdock: “I think that Matt has grown up with just this sensory overload. In every room he walks into and every street he walks down he’s just dealing with so many components it’s hard to imagine. And what I liked about that is that it gave him a stillness and a centeredness because he’s taking all this information in, which also works quite well because it also allows him to command a room. He walks into a room and I feel like he immediately becomes the center of attention just by the nature of his stillness and his presence within that room. But he’s not trying to do that. He’s not trying to walk in and bully the room for himself. I think he’s walking in and he’s taking in so much information that it’s actually kind of quite a powerful presence.”

On those Daredevil fight scenes: “I worked with Chris Brewster and Phil Silvera — the stunt team. Chris Brewster was my stunt double who is an extraordinary human being capable of feats I didn’t know that human beings could achieve. And I did as much of the fight scenes that I was able to which turned out to be quite a lot. I really enjoy that part of it. I’m quite lucky in that area, I can pick things up quite quickly — I played a lot of sports at school — so I can pick the sequences up relatively quickly and as the season got on I got better at it and I was able to do more and more.”

Rosario Dawson — Claire Temple

On her character: “I spoke to my very intimate geek squad. And only half of them even knew who Claire Temple was. So that was even more interesting was that I was getting to join the Marvel Universe in a very unknown character. That made me really excited. It’s the Marvel Universe and that means they’re playing with it and rewriting it and anything could happen. So all those question marks is what got me excited and why I wanted to sign on.”

On what will hook the non-Daredevil fans/readers: “There’s going to be some stuff in there that’s really gonna resonate with you and make you recognize the world that you’re living around and maybe make yourself ask that question — does that situation come up? Do I call 911, do I walk away? Do I run in to help? Like…who am I in my hero’s journey? Just like you’re getting to explore these people and their journey. And that makes it really fun. And so I feel fans are going to be happy but I feel like there’s gonna be a lot of people who are going to be very surprised going, ‘I can’t believe I’m watching a costumed vigilante show. I don’t normally like this stuff but…’ It’s like this long 13-hour epic movie of seeing how people can make those choices that I suddenly feel myself sympathizing or relating.”

Elden Henson — Foggy Nelson

On Foggy: “He loves his friends and his neighborhood and the people around him and that’s the thing that I gravitated towards. Because I didn’t know much about this comic before I got involved so I looked for things that I could tap into.”

On becoming part of the Marvel Universe: “Even when I was doing research for the role, I reached out to a friend and he wasn’t necessarily a fan of the Daredevil comic but a fan of the Marvel comics and he was excited because all of this stuff sort of exists under one umbrella. And it’s kind of cool because it brings fans of this genre to it not just fans of Daredevil itself. And for me it’s a whole new world. I was kind of a movie nerd growing up. That’s what I spent all my time doing so I relate to that love for something, that deep love for something that means so much to you. So I’m excited to learn more about it and see how the fans react. I just hope they like it, you know what I’m saying. I hope they like my interpretation.”

Deborah Ann Woll — Karen Page

On her first impression: My first introduction to those scripts were just those first two episodes. I was very impressed that it hit the ground running. There’s actually very little exposition. We dive right into a case which just happens to be Karen’s. And I like that it gave her a real reason to be part of this team. They didn’t just hire her coincidentally. There’s a reason that they have the same goals.

On her character’s exciting comic book persona: Karen has an extreme trajectory in the comic books. And while I didn’t particularly want to play heroin-addicted porn star on day one, I like the idea that whether we go in that direction or not, that that kind of a person was always in her, just not present or not revealed yet. So I wanted to kind of take all aspects — the sweet side and the more daring, devilish side of her, pun intended, and sort of say she can have both of those things in her at the same time and struggle with that.

Other Daredevil cast members include Scott Glenn as Stick (Matt Murdock’s trainer), Vondie Curtis-Hall (as Ben Urich and Vincent D’Onofrio who stars as the villainous Wilson Fisk:

From Netflix: Matt Murdock finds his nemesis in Wilson Fisk, a mysterious businessman with the will to transform Hell’s Kitchen according to his grand design. In Marvel’s Daredevil, the pair is locked in a battle for the heart and soul of their home turf, a struggle that will eventually define each of their futures. Who Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk are and what they will become is at the heart of Marvel’s Daredevil.

All 13 episodes of Marvel’s Daredevil streams live everywhere today. Enjoy.