Ben Kingsley's Son Compares Julian Assange to His Dad's 'Iron Man 3' Role

Earlier this week, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested in London, his seven-year refuge [...]

By Nicole Drum

Earlier this week, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested in London, his seven-year refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in the city terminated reportedly due to Ecuador's patience having "reached its limit" with Assange's behavior within the embassy. It was a surprising turn of events for most when news of Assange's arrest broke, but for at least one person, the surprise was less about the arrest and more about Assange's appearance as he was being removed from the embassy -- one in which he looked an awful lot like a Marvel Cinematic Universe villain.

On Thursday, Ferdinand Kingsley, son of actor Ben Kingsley, took to Twitter with a side-by-side comparison of Assange during his arrest with his father's character Trevor Slattery/The Mandarin in Iron Man 3 and, well, the resemblance is definitely there. He even followed it up with a GIF from the movie of The Mandarin with his hands up in surrender. Don't believe us? Check it out below and see for yourself.

As you can see, there are definitely some similarities between Assange's arrest appearance and The Mandarin in Iron Man 3. Assange appears to have his hair pulled back while he's grown out his beard, very much in a similar fashion to the Mandarin. They even share a slightly wild-eyed and confused facial expression at the events happening around them.

As fans may recall, in Iron Man 3 a terrorist known as the Mandarin is behind a string of bombings that has left behind almost no forensic evidence. Happy Hogan, Tony Stark's security chief, is injured in one of the attacks which prompts Tony to threaten the Mandarin in a television broadcast and reveal his home address. That results in the destruction of Tony's home and Tony ending up stranded in rural Tennessee. Eventually, Tony is able to track down the Mandarin in Miami where he discovers that the vicious terrorist is actually a washed-up, drug-addicted actor named Trevor Slattery. Slattery had been hired by the real villain Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) and the think tank Advanced Idea Mechanics to simply star as the terrorist in propaganda videos. In effect, Slattery (and The Mandarin character) was a cover for AIM's Extremis experiments with Slattery largely oblivious to everything.

Kingsley's Mandarin was met with mixed response by fans of Iron Man 3 as the film's version of the character was a pretty significant departure from The Mandarin in comics. Some fans were upset because the character wasn't comic book accurate, while others appreciated the twist as it allowed the film to avoid the racist caricature the character is in comics. However, even with the mixed reaction from the fandom, Ben Kingsley himself said back in 2014 that he wasn't concerned by negative fan reaction to the role.

"I wasn't worried [about fan reaction]," Kingsley said at the time. "I truly wasn't worried. When I worked a lot in the theater before I became heavily involved in movies, which I love, I was privileged to play a lot of Shakespearian roles that most people in the audience were familiar with and everyone has their preconception of ... so, it had to be my Mandarin. It had to be my Trevor."

As for Assange, public reaction to his arrest is mixed as well though one thing is certain: like The Mandarin, Assange will have to answer to the charges against him. Assange is facing extradition to the United States in connection to a massive leak of government secrets from 2010 as well as possible extradition to Sweden in relation to sexual assault allegations there.

Do you see the resemblance between Assange and The Mandarin? Let us know in the comments below.

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