Peacemaker: Chukwudi Iwuji Opens Up About Murn's Big Twist

Peacemaker is now six episodes deep, and we learned earlier in the season that Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji) is actually a butterfly. At the end of the fifth episode, Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) learned the truth about Murn, and the latest episode, "Murn After Reading," revealed that there was more to the character than expected. While Murn may be a butterfly, he is genuinely trying to stop his fellow aliens from taking over Earth. During a recent chat with TV Insider, Iwuji teased what's to come in the final two episodes of Peacemaker and spoke about his character's big twist. 

"I've known from the start," Iwuji said of his character's identity. "One of the luxuries of working on TV with James Gunn is that he gives you all the episodes before you start shooting! In very early conversations with James and Peter Safran, one of the producers, that was part of my attraction to playing Murn: This huge, wonderful reveal. He has this secret."

"They knew from the beginning," he added of his castmates. "Everyone got the scripts, everyone knew it, yeah. But we were all joined in the knowledge of playing each scene as it comes. We all bought into that, instead of giving sly looks or moments. It was all about scene to scene, and forgetting about that until we had to deal with it."

He continued, "I'm very conscious of never playing the arc of a character, that luxury of knowing what is going to happen and playing that in real-time to the audience. I think that's very condescending to the audience and it doesn't help with reveals. I took it step by step. The Murn you meet in Episode 1 is the black ops operative that everyone knows about that's done dark things. That's what I gave them. The team leader, that's what I gave them. The scene where I have to bring them together, get them to focus and tell Peacemaker to shut up for the thousandth time, that's what I gave them."

Iwuji explaned, "If there are any clues, I believe it's in the writing, not my performance. My performance had to be moment to moment and scene to scene. James had written it that way, so that was how I played it. The overall picture is the layered part of it."

No matter what happens with Murn, Peacemaker won't be Iwuji's last project with Gunn. The actor was also cast in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which is currently in production. It's unclear who Iwuji is playing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the actor has opened up about how much he enjoys working with Gunn.

Peacemaker's first six episodes are now streaming on HBO Max with new episodes dropping on Thursdays. 

0comments