Credit: Marvel StudiosJonathan Majors’ big MCU debut happened in Tom Hiddleston’s Loki as a surprise to everyone. The actor starred as He Who Remains, a variant of Kang the Conqueror, but now the actor doesn’t care about that performance.
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Unlike other villains, Majors has the potential to test his acting capabilities in the MCU. His role is multifaceted as he gets the unique opportunity to act out many different versions of the same character. As a time-traveling warlord and technological genius, Kang is full of tricks, and Majors is probably enjoying the fact he can play several different characters in one role.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Qunatumania (2023) might be Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang/Ant-Man’s new adventure, but it’s also the first time fans will see Kang the Conqueror in action. Loki revealed He Who Remains, the first of many Kang variants, and Majors makes it very clear that the two variants have nothing in common and that he treats them as separate characters.
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When talking to GamesRadar shared that Kang has to be entirely different in the actor’s mind to differentiate the role for each variant:
“I’m so radical about my language around it because I say, He Who Remains is He Who Remains. I don’t even call him Kang. He may or may not be a Kang variant. I leave my mind open to think that Kang the Conqueror may be a He Who Remains variant. It has to be that lucid for me, to keep it going. But, no, there’s no similarities in the two roles.”
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He went on to clarify that he didn’t look at He Who Remains or anything about the variant on purpose while filming Ant-Man 3:
“I did play Kang the Conqueror second… I didn’t even look at the template for He Who Remains in regard to Kang. On purpose.”
Kang the Conqueror is a menace, and it’s good that Majors can look at each role separately, but it’s bizarre that the actor doesn’t look at the other variants while acting. It could mean that every variant fans see in the MCU will be radically different for better or for worse.
Fans who might be worried about Kang the Conqueror being another Thanos can probably rest assured that the MCU is going to do the same story for Kang in the Multiverse Saga. Having two variants is very interesting, and the MCU will likely add more over time, with some variants potentially showing up in other movies like the Fantastic Four (2025) as fans speculate Kang might be responsible for their absence.
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The one consequence of Major’s performance is that he will have to nail the performance every time he plays a different variant in order to make fans see the different variants and understand on a fundamental level that they are all separate characters. Fans could get confused or find one variant to be annoying or awful.
It’s unlikely that Majors won’t steal the spotlight every single time Kang appears in the MCU, but the actor’s technique will face a lot of challenges to prove to fans just how different each variant is. At least he won’t be playing the same version for every movie he appears in and will bore fans over time (if that is possible).
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania releases in theaters on February 17, 2023.
Do you think Kang the Conqueror’s different variants will confuse fans over the next few years?