Daredevil's Vincent D'Onofrio on Continuing Kingpin in Hawkeye: "They're the Same Person"

Warning: this story contains spoilers for Episode 6 of Hawkeye, "So This Is Christmas?" No multiversal variants here: Vincent D'Onofrio confirms the Kingpin who takes aim at Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) on Hawkeye is "the same person​" who went to the mat with Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) across three seasons​ of Marvel's Daredevil. After he's beaten twice over by the attorney-by-day, vigilante-by-night on the Marvel-Netflix series, the "big guy" behind the events of Hawkeye is rebuilding his crime empire in the aftermath of the Blip. According to D'Onofrio, this Wilson Fisk is the same version​ as the one who appeared in Netflix's now-defunct corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

"They don't exist [separately]. They're the same person," D'Onofrio told ScreenRant when asked if Daredevil and Hawkeye exist in two separate worlds. "I think from my point of view, like a lot of the Avengers stuff, a lot of the MCU stuff, they tried to connect as many dots to the original canon as they can, and some dots are just not possible to connect. And that's what we've done with connecting to Daredevil and vice versa."

Daredevil saw the shadowy Fisk rebuilding Hell's Kitchen in the aftermath of the Battle of New York, where Earth's mightiest heroes assembled for the first time in 2012's The Avengers. On Hawkeye, Fisk is determined to take back his city post-Blip and post-reckoning of the Ronin (Renner). 

"There's some dots [that] are connected. Like in the Hawkeye show, Fisk is obviously physically stronger and can take more physical abuse," D'Onofrio said, recalling how Kingpin tore off a car door and survived the trick arrows fired by Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld). "But the key to his being an interesting character, in my mind, will always be the fact that he has this emotional life that grounds him, that makes everything work, as far as I'm concerned. We can sell that character in so many facets. Story-wise we can sell it, if we keep him based in that emotional life."

"And I know that the writers, and the producers, and me, and everybody involved in the Hawkeye show, we were all on the same page about that," he said.

Though Kingpin's sins seemingly catch up to him when Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) shoots her "Uncle" Fisk for his manipulations, D'Onofrio expects to eventually return to the MCU. In the comics, Fisk survives when the betrayed Maya shoots him point-blank in the pages of Daredevil. 

A deleted post-credits scene ending Hawkeye reportedly confirmed Kingpin's fate​ after the finale cut away from the apparent murder.

All episodes of Marvel's Hawkeye are now streaming on Disney+. 

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