From Daredevil to Echo, D'Onofrio's performance can flex in any MCU project
Marvel Studios' Echo – Official 'Last Lesson' Cut (2024) Alaqua Cox, Vincent D'Onofrio
Despite the MCU's attempts to replicate the long-running stories of the comics, supervillains tend not to last very long. It's a tradition in movies dating back to the '90s era when Batman inevitably dropped the villain from a ceiling before the credits rolled, something even Marvel's tie-in can't seem to fix. And even those in the MCU who return regularly, like Thanos and Loki, either build up over time or flip-flop their loyalties.
The biggest deviator to this rule, however, is Wilson Fisk, aka the Kingpin. Portrayed in hot, idiosyncratic fashion by the wonderful Vincent D'Onofrio, the Kingpin has been around in the MCU for nearly a decade, and much of that is due to D'Onofrio's easy ability to apply his talents and the character's own attributes to what best suits a certain series.
Wilson Fisk may be D'Onofrio's magnum opus when it comes to his mastery of a kind of unyielding, striking physicality. The most famous example is his performance as the tragic Leonard "Gomer Pyle" Lawrence in Full Metal Jacket, a man slowly torn apart by the pressures of boot camp and into a haunted, murderous shell of himself. There's also the manic, bug-infested Edgar in Men in Black and Conan the Barbarian creator (and amateur boxer/weightlifter) Robert Howard in The Whole Wide World, an underrated performance that D'Onofrio plays with electric pathos. He often plays a man who turns against the world, and he can do this in both comedy and introspective drama with ease. As a Pisces, he constantly wrestles with himself (and everyone else). Few characters are as comfortable grasping desperately at family ties, expressing boyish vulnerability, controlling an urban landscape, or beating a man to death with their bare hands as D'Onofrio's Fisk.
