The Daredevil: Born Again trailer released to widespread acclaim, giving fans an updated look at favorite characters along with the first look at Michael Gandolfini’s mysterious role.
The trailer catches us up on the five years between Matt Murdock’s vigilante past and present via a long conversation between Murdock and Kingpin, who is now mayor. We get updated looks at Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle/Punisher, Karen Page, and various villains, but the trailer is also exciting in its first real look at Michael Gandolfini’s mysterious new character.
In the absence of a wild new surprise, there are three real options for the character Gandolfini could be playing, each one suggesting different ways Daredevil: Born Again could play out.
Who is Michael Gandolfini playing in Daredevil: Born Again?
In the trailer, we get a glimpse of Gandolfini walking confidently in city streets, while Murdock narrates “I was raised to believe in grace” over the footage. After some scenes of bone-crunching violence, Murdock follows the thought with “but I was also raised to believe in retribution.” The initial copyright listing for Daredevil: Born Again listed Michael Gandolfini as playing “Daniel Blade,” an original character without precedent in the comics or in Daredevil’s Netflix run.
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As an original character, Blade could fill all sorts of roles (though unlikely to be related to Marvel’s other Blade), but given that he’s seen in the ‘villain beat down’ portion of the trailer, Blade would most likely be aligned with Kingpin or other antagonists. That said, Marvel’s been known to use tricky means to keep cameos and characters a secret, from actors lying in interviews to deceptively cut trailers.
It is possible that Gandolfini is playing a younger Kingpin, given Gandolfini’s plausible resemblance to D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk and experience portraying young Tony Soprano in The Many Saints of Newark. We saw Wilson Fisk as a child in Daredevil Season 1’s “Shadows in the Glass” (played by Cole Jensen), but Gandolfini bears strong resemblance to him as well, grown into a young man.
That resemblance in mind, he could also be playing Fisk’s son. In the comics, Wilson Fisk’s original son Richard had a complicated relationship to Kingpin, hovering through criminal circles under various guises. These included The Rose, whose criminal activities often involved a red hood under a suit… much like the character we see at 1:36 in the trailer above. Due to mystical shenanigans, Fisk also once ended up with another son, Byron “Butch” Fisk (long story), and Marvel has amalgamated comic characters before, so it’s possible that this history could fuel Gandolfini’s character. Whoever he is, we’re excited to see the reveal. We don’t expect every favorite character to have survived for the series, but some are confirmed.