Charlie Cox Talks Challenges of Making The Defenders

With Marvel’s The Defenders hitting Netflix on Friday audiences will soon get to see for themselves how Matt Murdock, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Danny Rand come together to fight Alexandra and the Hand in the war for New York.

But with each of the four heroes having their own shows and histories comes unique challenges. Daredevil‘s Charlie Cox spoke with Den of Geek about the biggest difference he experienced in working with The Defenders executive producer Marco Ramirez, describing the experiences as “very different” than making Daredevil.

Ramirez served as executive producer for the second season and according to Cox, the major difference between work on Daredevil and The Defenders was the way Ramirez structured the story to fit with four diverse characters.

“So just in terms of structuring the story it’s a completely different ball game. I was amazingly impressed by how he was able to take that and run with it. I can’t even imagine what it was like for him to write this show with four characters, all whom already exist, three of whom you’ve ever written four,” Cox said. “All of those guys have other people who wrote their individual shows, and they’ve already created the characters he has to try and find the voice of that matches and what was already filmed and put on screen.”

Cox also said that he personally experienced story-related challenges in making The Defenders, but not because of the expanded cast. For him the challenges surrounded by the introduction of the Hand and how to keep the life and death nature of the story real.

“I think the biggest challenge for me is when you introduce an organization like the Hand where there’s any sort of ambiguity around how these people live and die, whether they can be exterminated, and all that kind of stuff, in order to keep that grounded and real, from an acting perspective, I find that really challenging. Because you also need to pay attention to the tone of the piece.”

We’ll get to see how the tone of the series came out when The Defenders hits Netflix on August 18.

Marvel’s The Defenders follows Daredevil (Charlie Cox), Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Luke Cage (Mike Colter) and Iron Fist (Finn Jones). A quartet of singular heroes with one common goal – to save New York City. This is the story of four solitary figures, burdened with their own personal challenges, who realize they just might be stronger when teamed together.