What is a soul? Where do souls come from? And is life even worth living if everything feels hopeless? These are questions that are tackled in “Nine Days,” the debut feature from filmmaker Edson Oda. And helping answer those questions are the two leads, Zazie Beetz and Winston Duke, who joined The Playlist Podcast to talk about the new film, plus their Marvel histories.
“Nine Days” is a film about a group of souls that are being interviewed for the opportunity to be born as a new human. As you might expect from a film about such a topic, the story tends to get pretty heavy, going through the ups and downs that humanity has to offer, while ultimately providing a bit of hope that maybe life isn’t so bad.
And for Winston Duke, there is quite a bit that he took away from the experience of being Will in the film.
“A lot of Will stuck with me [after filming], and I had to spend a lot of time shedding that character intentionally because that’s a hard one to live with,” said Duke. “But what stayed with me is this idea to feel whole requires acceptance. And it’s accepting all of yourself. I think a lot of us try to shun what we see as the darker sides of ourselves or our own shadows and really try to live in our light and think that is the one thing that makes us us. But it’s really all of us…we’re all everything all in one.”
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But you can’t talk to Beetz and Duke without mentioning Marvel, right? For Duke, he’s probably best known as M’Baku, one of the leaders of Wakanda in “Black Panther.” And for Beetz, she’s known for bringing Domino to life in “Deadpool 2.” And now that “Deadpool 3” is expected to put the hero in the MCU, what about a crossover?
“I would love to come [to Wakanda],” said Beetz. “I think it’s funny because when we were doing ‘Deadpool,’ we kept doing this [makes an ‘X’ with her arms] for X-Force. And then ‘Black Panther’ came out and I was like ‘Damn it! They took it.’ [laughs]”
She added, “But I’d be so happy if ‘Deadpool 3’ ends up inviting me in and we all take a trip to hang out with M’Baku and the rest of the [‘Black Panther’] crew. I’d be more than happy to join in. I’m excited. I would love to revisit Domino again. I like her.”
Obviously, “Deadpool 3” is expected to begin production fairly soon, as the MCU is desperate to get Ryan Reynolds involved, and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is in production now. So, perhaps there’s a chance of a crossover down the line. We’ll have to wait and see. You can hear our full discussion below:
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