Alfred Molina to reprise his role of Otto Octavius in Tom Holland-led Spider-Man: No Way Home – Entertainment News , Firstpost
Alfred Molina, who first played the part in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 in 2004, will be de-aged for No Way Home.
Actor Alfred Molina has revealed that is he set to reprise his role as the villainous Otto Octavius in Tom Holland-led Spider-Man: No Way Home, for which he will be de-aged.
Otto Octavius or Doctor Octavius is the tentacled villain in the superhero universe, whose life as a scientist is transformed following a radiation leak.
Molina, who first played the part in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 in 2004, said he kept the casting a secret while shooting for the film.
“When we were shooting it, we were all under orders not to talk about it, because it was supposed to be some great big secret,” Molina told Variety.
“But, you know, it’s all over the internet. I actually described myself as the worst kept secret in Hollywood!”
Molina said he asked director Jon Watts about how he was planning to bring the character back, considering he had died.
Watts told him: “In this universe, no one really dies.”
In Spider-Man 2, Doctor Octopus, who has endangered all of New York City in his obsession with perfecting his experimental fusion reactor, drowns himself and his reactor in the East River before the city is destroyed when Peter Parker appeals to his good side.
Molina said during their early conversation, Watts told him that the story will pick up from that moment in the river but the 67-year-old actor was concerned as he looked nothing like how he looked in the 2004 movie.
“He (Watts) just looked at me, and said, ‘Did you see what we did to Bob (Robert) Downey Jr. and Sam Jackson?”” Molina said.
In 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, Marvel Studios used CGI to de-age Robert Downey Jr. to look as he did in 1991; and in 2019’s Captain Marvel also set in the 1990s, a de-aged Samuel L. Jackson played a younger version of his character, Nick Fury.
Molina is looking forward to returning to the role 17 years later.
“It was wonderful. It was very interesting going back after 17 years to play the same role, given that in the intervening years, I now have two chins, a wattle, crow’s feet and a slightly a slightly dodgy lower back,” he said.
The de-ageing technology is something that Hollywood has started experimenting within recent years with directors such as Martin Scorsese and Ang Lee reversing the clock on their actors in The Irishman and Gemini Man
No Way Home is scheduled to be released during Christmas on 17 December.
