Sebastian Stan is the latest Marvel actor to say he’s open to a DC role down the line — but in his case, he already has his eye on one in particular. The Captain America franchise regular says he would love to turn up as Batman baddie The Riddler in James Gunn and Peter Safran’s upcoming DC Universe. Of course, while Gunn and Safran definitely have plans for a Batman movie, it seems likely Riddler will be on the back burner for a while, considering that the character was just used in The Batman.
The character of The Riddler is one of the most popular Batman villains in the comics, and has been for decades, but certainly he has been one who has changed a lot over time. Live action interpretations aren’t always tracked to what’s going on in the comics, either.
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“I don’t know if Batman’s for me, but never say never,” Stan told Happy Sad Confused when pressed on the idea of a DC role. “I don’t know. There’s so many characters — I told you, I always had a soft spot for that Riddler, but that one’s been done.”
You can see the full interview below.
The character has previously been played in live action by Frank Gorshin on Batman, Jim Carrey in Batman Forever, and Paul Dano in The Batman.
Riddler has, at times, been reinvented as something of an antihero, so that’s something Stan could obviously lean into. He has spent the last decade or so straddling the line of good and evil as Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier.
It seems he will be straddling that line again as part of Thunderbolts, a team that matches him up with a bunch of previous Marvel movie villains on a Suicide Squad-style team of deeply flawed villains and antiheroes being forced into heroism by a government operative (here, Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus).
In the interview, Stan seems to confirm long-standing rumors that Thunderbolts was pretty radically reworked, but claims that he is happy with the final product and confident the movie will play well for audiences. He also had nothing but good things to say about working with both Louis-Dreyfus and Wyatt Russell, whom he calls one of the funniest people he’s ever met.
Russell is set to reprise his role as John Walker/U.S. Agent in the film, one that he originated in Falcon and the Winter Soldier. It isn’t clear whether Walker will recur in the upcoming Captain America: Brave New World.