Dan Stevens Reveals Why He Tricked Marvel Fans Into Thinking He Was in Eternals

Actor Dan Stevens has gained major acclaim for his roles in shows like FX’s Legion and Hulu’s Solar Opposites  – as well as recent films like the horror flick Abigail and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. However, Stevens saw his star rise in a peculiar way back in the late 2010s: rumors started floating around that Stevens was attached to a major Marvel Studios production – a rumor began stoking himself, even though it was just that – a rumor. Now, in a new interview, Stevens is explaining why he decided to play with Marvel Cinematic Universe fans’ expectations – and what kind of price he’s paid for doing it. 

For background: Dan Stevens was in the UK filming the Netflix comedy Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga in 2019. At that same time, in that same place, Marvel Studios was also shooting Eternals. Stevens is friends with Eternals cast members Brian Tyree Henry and Kumail Nanjiani, and met up with them for a night out in London; a picture of the trio quickly went viral, as Marvel fans began theorizing that the photo was a slip-up, which revealed Stevens’ secret role in Eternals.

The rumor mill quickly turned to the idea that Stevens was providing motion capture and vocals for Kro, the leader of the Deviants, the Eternals’ genetic rivals. There was nothing to those rumors, but Stevens decided to troll Marvel fans while doing press interviews for his own projects – going so far as to tell Collider’s Steve Weintraub “Kro comment” when asked about the rumors. That teasing eventually came back on Stevens, as rabid Marvel fans and reporters all began to question him incessantly about Eternals, and all the Marvel Comics history attached to it: 

“What happened was, I was in London shooting Eurovision Song Contest when my good friends Brian Tyree Henry and Kamal Nanjani were in London shooting ‘Eternals,’ and we went for a curry,” Stevens recently explained to The Playlist. “And as sometimes happens when you’re hanging out with actor friends, everyone’s like, ‘let’s take a selfie,’ and someone posted it, and in the way that only the internet can, it just was like, ‘He must be playing [Kro].’ And I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ And so, we just had fun teasing fans for a while.”

Stevens went on to admit that the joke got out of hand when his press tours became bombarded with MCU questions: 

“It did get kind of out of hand where, like, I would sit in junkets like this with something completely unconnected, and people would say, ‘So, you know, what’s it like working with Chloe Zhao?’ And I’d be like, ‘Oh, listen, let me stop you right there. This has gotten way out of hand.’ But, yeah, all that happened is we went for a friendly dinner in London.”

As it turned out, it was IT movie (and currently The Crow reboot) star Bill Skarsgård who provided some of the performance for Kro; beyond his role as Charles Xavier’s troubled (and powerful) mutant son Legion, Dan Stevens has yet to find his big Marvel breakout role. 

Marvel’s Eternals is now streaming on Disney+.