Thandiwe Newton Rejected Superhero Film That Offered Her Role of ‘Mom Who Just Dies’

Thandiwe Newton is interested in starring in a superhero movie, but not one that casts her as a mother whose primary importance for the story is to die. Such was a role offered to the “Westworld” Emmy winner. Newton revealed to LAD Bible that she turned down a superhero tentpole because the role being offered to her was “someone’s mum who just dies.” The actress added, “I was like, ‘Meh, no.’ It was more the role, you know what I mean?”

Should there be a meatier role to accept, Newton is more than ready to enter the superhero movie world. The actress said she’s been impressed recently by superhero films with real artistic edge. “The perfect example is Taika Waititi, what he did with ‘Thor: Ragnarok,'” she said. “I love that the actors in it really want to push it too — of course they do, it’s boring otherwise, Jesus.”

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“As a genre they bore me, these big franchises, and I’m quite cynical about it too, because it’s just about money; it’s this behemoth of money that’s just like rolling forward gathering more money, right?” Newton added. “But now I feel like there is a demand from both the audience, I think people who are involved in the movies — but certainly the world — that there is better substance around these superhero things.”

Newton has experience with Hollywood franchise tentpoles as a cast member in “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” but that role did not live up to her expectations. Newton was cast as the first major Black woman in a “Star Wars” movie, but her character was killed off when the script changed during production.

“I felt disappointed by ‘Star Wars’ that my character was killed,” Newton recently told Inverse. “And, actually, in the script, she wasn’t killed. It happened during filming. And it was much more just to do with the time we had to do the scenes. It’s much easier just to have me die than it is to have me fall into a vacuum of space so I can come back sometime,” said Newton,

Newton can be currently seen opposite Hugh Jackman in “Reminiscence,” now playing in theaters and streaming on HBO Max.

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