“It’s not what you think it is. It’s a cage; it does everything it can to break you.” So speaketh Kang the Conqueror in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
But the quote could also apply in real-life to reviews of the film, which has been largely dismissed by a significant percentage of critics.
Jonathan Majors, who plays Kang in the film, talked about how the negative reviews of the Marvel film affected him on Friday’s episode of IndieWire’s “Screen Talk” podcast.
Fortunately for his psyche, Majors realizes that online trolling about a film he’s in “doesn’t change” how he sees himself.
“One thing I will say to my team as we’re leaving a premiere, if they’re reading reviews, I’ll say, ‘How’s the movie doing?’ I try to clean my plate and take care of my part,” said Majors.
“The response is: ‘You’re straight. You’re good. They like you.’ And (then) they tell me about the movie. Sometimes the movie is also on that level, and sometimes [it’s not].”
To Majors, it’s all just information. ““I look at the aggregate and, OK, 47. But what does that 47 mean when you also got this amount of box office? What do these things mean? It’s information,” he said.