Charlie Cox Practically Blinded Himself While Filming Daredevil

The start of the Marvel/Netflix relationship, Daredevil, has quickly blossomed into three other series, spin-offs, and now the culmination with The Defenders is staffing up for filming. But that first series, starring Charlie Cox as Matthew Murdock/Daredevil, had to be a success to make everything else they announced work, and it was. With the first season finally out on Blu-ray this week (it’s obviously also still available to stream on Netflix), Cox went out to Wizard World Pittsburgh last weekend and talked about his experiences with the character and filming.

Daredevil, a blind superhero, has his other senses enhanced so he can still fight crime. While Cox can see, he was praised for his portrayal of a blind man (even earning an award from the Foundation for the Blind), and worked with coaches to get the nuance and movement down appropriately. But he almost went a little too far in his preparation.

“I don’t know if you know this [or not] but on the first season, I was trying to figure out how to do it. I went to this specialist, an optician – and I had these lenses made that were identical to my eyes but they completely blinded me,” the actor relayed. “You put them in and I couldn’t see a thing and I thought great, I’ll do that and I don’t have to do any acting. The problem with that was that after every take, someone from the crew had to come and get me and lead me away and kind of sit me down. After the second day, I was like this is going to get really old, really quick.”

While the actor didn’t wind up wearing those blinding contacts for the duration of two seasons of filming, it certainly afforded him a new perspective in portraying Murdock’s day-to-day life without sight.

Next, Cox will team up with Mike Colter’s Luke Cage, Krysten Ritter’s Jessica Jones, and Finn Jones’ Danny “Iron Fist” Rand in The Defenders. The four heroes will join together Avengers-style to save New York from a worse threat than any of them have seen or could handle individually.

Marvel and Netflix’s original deal will be complete with Iron Fist and The Defenders, but already have more planned. A second season of Jessica Jones and the first spinoff series, The Punisher, will debut after Defenders. A third season of Daredevil will also come to Netflix after the team-up mini-series.

More Daredevil News: Charlie Cox Really Wants to See Bullseye in Daredevil Season 3 | Daredevil and Jessica Jones Vinyl Soundtracks Announced | Is Wilson Fisk in The Defenders? | Marvel Characters Who Should Be in Netflix Phase 2

H/T Screengeek