Viola Davis is ready to suit up and join the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In her new film G20, the Oscar-winning actress plays the president of the United States and is thrown into a Die Hard-esque hostage situation at an international conference, leading one character to jokingly refer to her as “Captain America.”
At the film’s red carpet premiere, Entertainment Weekly asked Davis if she’d be interested in playing a Marvel character. “Yeah, absolutely,” she said. “I don’t know what hero I would be, you know. I just, my daughter is a Marvel fanatic, so I’ve watched, I think almost all of them five, six times.”
Davis then pitched her vision for a new character she could play: “Probably an Iron Man. I would be — maybe Iron Mania? Iron Shaniqua Mania?”
The Fences star is no stranger to comic book projects. Davis has played ruthless government official Amanda Waller in several DC projects, including 2016’s Suicide Squad and its 2021 sequel. She’s also one of the only actors to play the same role in both the previous incarnation of the DC movie universe (which launched with Man of Steel) and James Gunn‘s retooled DCU, as she voiced Waller in the new continuity’s first project, Creature Commandos. Gunn is in the midst of developing a live-action solo series centering on Davis’ Waller.
Clay Enos/Warner Bros.
While Iron Mania isn’t a pre-existing Marvel character, it’s not completely out of the question that Davis could don robotic armor in the future. Robert Downey Jr.‘s Tony Stark perished in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame and hasn’t been replaced with a new Iron Man since his death (whereas we’ve seen a new Captain America and a new Thor via Anthony Mackie‘s Sam Wilson and Natalie Portman‘s Jane Foster).
However, Dominique Thorne’s Riri Williams developed her own robot suit inspired by Stark’s and debuted as the Iron Man–esque hero Ironheart in 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. She’s set to receive her own Disney+ series in June.
Other MCU characters have also donned Stark’s armor over the course of the franchise. Don Cheadle‘s James Rhodes first suited up as War Machine in 2010’s Iron Man 2, while Gwyneth Paltrow‘s Pepper Potts received her own armor in Endgame. And villains played by Jeff Bridges and Mickey Rourke have also modified Stark’s suits for nefarious purposes.
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G20 also stars Anthony Anderson as Davis’ husband, Marsai Martin as her daughter, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. alum Clark Gregg as her vice president. The Boys‘ Antony Starr serves as the film’s villain. The movie hits Prime Video on April 10.
—With reporting from Briana Edwards.
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