Could Kingpin Become President? Daredevil Star Offers a Surprising Answer

Daredevil: Born Again explores the nightmare scenario of a charismatic but corrupt leader getting elected to a position of power and then abusing it, but it doesn’t go any higher than the mayor’s office. Surprisingly, star Vincent D’Onofrio doesn’t think it ever will. In an interview with Variety, the actor behind Kingpin said that he doesn’t believe his character could get into the Oval Office — or that he would even want to at this point. He acknowledged the connections between this story and real-world politics today, but to him, the terror of Born Again is contained within the borders of New York City.

“I don’t really think of him as a political person; I think of him as a corrupt person,” D’Onofrio said of Wilson Fisk. “I guess that could happen. I doubt seriously that he’ll take that path. I guess you’re saying that because of what’s going on in real life, and we’re not attaching the show to anything that’s going on in real life. So I don’t think that path is going to be taken.”

“But it is dangerous. It’s very dangerous with what my character is doing,” the actor went on, referring to Tuesday’s season finale of Born Again. “As a New Yorker — I was born in Brooklyn, but I’ve been living in and around the city since my late teens — it’s the idea of New York being under martial law. When I thought about it in reality, it’s such a scary thing. Imagine the bridges being closed off and only being able to get in and out with IDs and proof of why we’re going in the city. It’s kind of insane… It would be crazy.”

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To D’Onofrio, the closest real-world analogy was actually 9/11, and the days immediately after it. He said that the general anxiety within the city in those days is his closest touchstone for the situation at the end of this season. Still, many commenters online feel that Born Again is full of overt references to our political landscape in the U.S. right now, and New York City is a major part of that as well.

D’Onofrio has become one of the longest-lived, most prolific villains in the MCU. He’s been playing Wilson Fisk for a full decade now, and was one of the first characters from the Netflix-era shows to make the jump over to the Disney+ shows. Fans still want more for him, including a big screen debut. After this season’s cliffhanger ending, it certainly feels like anything is possible.

Daredevil: Born Again is streaming now in Disney+. Season 2 is filming now, and is expected to premiere in the first half of 2026.