‘Hawkeye’ Costume Designer On How Marvel Kept Kingpin’s Casting A Secret

Mission accomplished!

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Hawkeye costume designer Michael Crow revealed just how far Marvel went to keep Kingpin’s casting a secret.

The cat is out of the bag: Vincent D’Onofrio has returned as Kingpin. After debuting in Netflix’s Daredevil series, Kingpin was finally folded into the Marvel Cinematic Universe when he returned in the penultimate episode of Hawkeye. While the show had been teasing his return all season with casual hints, the behind-the-scenes story was much, much different.

In a chat with Insider, Hawkeye’s costume designer Michael Crow unveiled Marvel’s tactics to keep Vincent D’Onofrio’s return a secret.

“I didn’t know until about maybe halfway through filming. I think in the original script it was scripted as another character. Like something from the [Matt] Fraction [Hawkeye] comic books, but not Kingpin. I started asking questions about what we wanted to do, how do we wanna approach it? And I got an immediate phone call back from Trinh Tran [Marvel Studios Producer]. And she just said: ‘We’ll talk about that a little bit later. We’re not ready to talk about that yet, but it’s not gonna be that [the character from the script]. It’s a big secret.'”

Once Crow was told that the secret character was Kingpin, he and his team only had a short amount of time to craft the costume.

 “Once I was told that Vincent was coming back, we had about two months to create costumes for Kingpin.”

The Hawkeye costume designer revealed that he also didn’t get a chance to meet Vincent D’Onofrio until his first day of filming and that costume fittings had to happen virtually.

“We did a lot of long-distance fittings because [D’Onofrio} was working on another show in New York at the time. I didn’t see him until the very last minute and I mean, he is truly a lovely gentleman. A pleasure to work with.”

As for Kingpin’s look? Vincent D’Onofrio worked alongside the costume designer to craft a look that was a stark departure from the garbs he wore on the Netflix series.

“Vincent was integral in creating the character and a lot of the ideas stemmed from what he wanted to do with the character and you know, things that he had always wanted to take directions. He wanted to approach the character as a little more like down and out and grittier than he had previously been presented in the other show.”

Here is the synopsis for Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye:

Former Avenger Clint Barton has a seemingly simple mission: get back to his family for Christmas. Possible? Maybe with the help of Kate Bishop, a 22-year-old archer with dreams of becoming a Super Hero. The two are forced to work together when a presence from Barton’s past threatens to derail far more than the festive spirit.

Hawkeye stars Jeremy Renner, Hailee Steinfeld, Tony Dalton, Fra Free, Brian d’Arcy James, Aleks Paunovic, Piotr Adamczyk, Linda Cardellini, Simon Callow, Vera Farmiga, and Alaqua Cox. Florence Pugh also returned in her Black Widow role. Vincent D’Onofrio reprised his role as Daredevil villain Kingpin.

The first season of Hawkeye is now available to stream on Disney Plus. Stay tuned for all the latest news surrounding the Jeremy Renner series and the future of Kingpin, and be sure to subscribe to Heroic Hollywood’s YouTube channel for more original video content.

Source: Insider