Charlie Cox, who plays superhero Daredevil on Netflix, says he is a ‘technophobe’ who pays no attention to the online ‘Marvel Universe’ noise.
The British actor, who plays blind lawyer/crimefighter Matt Murdock in Netflix-Marvel superhero TV drama Daredevil, declares he has a simple attitude to the online petitions and fan campaigns- he doesn’t hear anything about them.
At the Off-Broadway opening of Incognito, a new play by Nick Payne in which he is acting, Cox, 33, told Heat Street: “I don’t read anything online. I’m a real technophobe, I guess you could say.
“I think what’s happened with actors and the internet now and blogs and people commenting…early on I made a decision that this was never going to be a healthy thing for me to engage in. So I’m not on social media, not on Twitter, not on Facebook or Instagram or any of those things. I keep my distance and that has helped me a little bit with not getting bogged down [by] people’s opinions.”
But Cox added he loves meeting Marvel fans in person: “I do now meet alot of fans on the street and I get to witness their passion for these characters which is extraordinary. I’ve had people come up to me and say, ‘I was reading Daredevil when I was growing up and he really helped me through a difficult time.’ People who grew up on comics look to these characters to help guide them- they’re a bit like old fairy tales.”
Cox is taking a break from Daredevil to star in Incognito, a play by British playwright Nick Payne, which was originally performed at London’s Bush Theatre in 2014. Cox, who previously appeared twice onstage in London early on in his career, said he wants to act again in the West End soon: “I would love to go back on stage in London. When I wanted to be an actor, that was the dream. I very nearly did in the summer [of 2015] but I couldn’t get out of a press tour that Netflix required me to do so I couldn’t do it.”
Incognito, being staged at New York City Center, marks playwright Payne’s return to New York theatre since his 2015 Broadway hit Constellations starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson. The play features four actors playing 21 characters chronicling three interweaving stories about neuroscience and memory.
Cox plays six parts in Incognito including a journalist investigating the whereabouts of Albert Einstein’s brain. He said: “The hard work was really the rehearsal period because once you get it into your muscle memory, those transitions become easier. It looks more complicated than it is to do but it’s much easier in this play, which isn’t linear, to suddenly get lost and when you do get lost it’s hard to re-find your place.”
American co-star Morgan Spector, who wed actress Rebecca Hall last September, said of his English accents in the play: “I’m married to a Brit so that gave me a leg-up in that respect.” He added of Payne: “It’s uncompromising in terms of what he’s doing formally but it’s generous in how he understands narrative. Any audience, assuming they can understand English, can respond to this play even though it has unresolved questions. ”
Heather Lind, also an Incognito performer and star of AMC’s Civil War series Turn, said she isn’t surprised Payne is a young hit writer in both London and New York (he also currently has another play Elegy on at the Donmar Warehouse): “Nick finds humor in complex situations and he challenges your mind and entertains you.”
She added of Cox’s advice to the three other American cast members who had to assume English accents in the play: “Sometimes he would tell us if we were getting things wrong… and vice versa because he does a few American accents.”
