<\/p>\n
He has portrayed everyone from an unhinged private in Stanley Kubrick\u2019s classic \u201cFull Metal Jacket” to an alien bug in \u201cMen in Black\u201d to a Marvel villain in two \u201cDaredevil\u201d series.<\/p>\n
You get the idea. Some actors are lucky to have one iconic role. Others, like Vincent D\u2019Onofrio, forge careers that contain multitudes of them<\/p>\n
The versatile star of film and television will be in metro Detroit this weekend for the popular Motor City Comic Con. He is scheduled to meet fans on Nov. 15 and 16 and participate Nov. 16 in a panel discussion with \u201cLuke Cage\u201d star Mike Colter about Marvel streaming shows.<\/p>\n
D\u2019Onofrio\u2019s appearance is among the highlights of Michigan\u2019s biggest pop-culture convention, which will bring together celebrities, comic artists, cosplay enthusiasts, vendors and fans Nov. 14-16 at Novi’s Suburban Collection Showcase. He spoke to the Free Press about some of his most unforgettable roles (and a surprising one that he\u2019d love to play).<\/p>\n
In both the Netflix original series and the Disney+ revival, D\u2019Onofrio lends Shakespearean depth to Wilson Fisk, the crime boss known as Kingpin, who is as oddly sympathetic in his search for love and respect as he is terrifyingly violent.<\/p>\n
D\u2019Onofrio says he understands why the supervillain was able to evoke a certain empathy in viewers. \u201cTo see him in domestic situations \u2026 meeting Vanessa, falling in love, getting married, all that stuff. … That was the most interesting (thing) to me about it,\u201d he notes of the Netflix series.<\/p>\n
In the first season of \u201cDaredevil: Born Again,\u201d Fisk became the mayor of New York City, a plot twist that will have major developments when the series returns March 4, 2026. \u201cIt gets very heavy, that whole situation in the second season,\u201d says D\u2019Onofrio of a journey that \u201cis just getting wilder and wilder and crazier and crazier.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the biopic starring Jessica Chastain as Tammy Faye Bakker, D\u2019Onofrio plays Jerry Falwell, the famous televangelist and conservative activist who co-founded the Moral Majority. He won praise for capturing Falwell\u2019s genial exterior and inner toughness as a political power broker.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just tried to nail him. I looked at so much footage and wanted to get his voice down as close as I could and his mannerisms and his whole kind of tone and vibe that he threw out,\u201d says D\u2019Onofrio. \u201cHe overcompensated with his voice, because he wasn\u2019t that well-educated. So he overcompenstated in the way that he enunciated and used inflection. \u2026 That was fun to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
D\u2019Onofrio laughs at the suggestion that devoted followers of his tormented, driven Det. Bobby Goren kept hoping for an episode where he would go on a date and have fun. \u201cHe was a pretty intense guy,\u201d he admits.<\/p>\n
The tight and \u201creally well-executed scripts\u201d helped make what D\u2019Onofrio calls \u201ca very hard job\u201d easier. As he explains: \u201cWe averaged 17 hours a day for 10 months a year. It will always be probably the most difficult job I\u2019ve ever done.\u201d He played Goren from Season 1 through 8, sat out most of Season 9, then returned for the concluding Season 10.<\/p>\n
He praises \u201cLaw & Order\u201d creator Dick Wolf for giving him free rein in interpreting the character. \u201cIt was my first big job like that on television. People told me to \u2018push yourself away from the table, get through it.\u2019 I didn\u2019t do that,\u201d says D\u2019Onofrio. \u201cIf we were going to do a Sherlock Holmes-type show, I wanted it to be interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here is one serious actor who enjoys playing creatures like Edgar the Bug, a cockroach-like space alien disguised as a human farmer in the Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith action romp. \u201cA lot of people don\u2019t know it\u2019s me doing it,” says D\u2019Onofrio. \u201cBut the people who know it\u2019s me always bring it up.\u201d<\/p>\n
D’Onofrio likes many genres of film, but admits he loves monster movies \u2014 “not particularly horror films, but monster horror, ever since I was a kid (watching) Lon Chaney Jr. and Wolfman and Frankenstein, Dracula and Swamp Thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking of Swamp Thing, he started reading the comic books about the DC antihero when he was in his 30s at someone\u2019s recommendation. \u201cThe narrative is amazing,\u201d he says. \u201cHe has this inner voice that\u2019s so emotional and so empathetic because he is just brokenhearted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Continues D’Onofrio: \u201cWhen people ask me what would I want to do if I was going to do another superhero villain, Swamp Thing is what I would want to do. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll get to do it, but I\u2019d love to do it.” Hey, director James Gunn (who announced in 2023 that a Swamp Thing movie is under development) are you listening?<\/p>\n
D\u2019Onofrio was nominated for a guest actor Emmy for playing a subway rider who becomes trapped from the waist up between a Baltimore Metro car and the station platform.<\/p>\n
The episode focused on conversations between D\u2019Onofrio\u2019s doomed passenger and Andre Braugher\u2019s \u201cHomicide\u201d character, Det. Frank Pembleton, who grows close to him in their short time together.<\/p>\n
\u201dIt\u2019s one of my favorite jobs ever,\u201d says D\u2019Onofrio. \u201cAndre was amazing.\u201d He says the actors handled the episode much like a two-man play. \u201cTo have Andre there in the role opposite, it was so good,\u201d he remembers, describing the late Braugher as \u201can incredibly well-prepared actor.\u201d<\/p>\n