One Eternals star didn't have to audition for her role in the Chloé Zhao film.
"I didn’t audition for the role of Makkari," Ridloff told The Hollywood Reporter. "I was tapped, you could say. I was called for a sit-down meeting with Chloé and [producer] Nate Moore about a new untitled Marvel project. During that meeting, they introduced The Eternals to me and tried to capture the story and the people that make up the Eternals. The conversation shifted to Makkari, who Makkari was in the comics and would be in the film, but it was all broad strokes."
"Chloé wanted to know who I was, so we spent some time talking about my upbringing, my interests, my passions," Ridloff continued. "I told Chloé my passions: reading, running, the arts. They weren’t committing to anything specific during the meeting. I wasn’t sure what was going on — it felt like just a conversation, more along the lines of 'Hey, what do you like? Who are you? We’re interested in you, maybe, for this film. Do you know anything about Eternals? Makkari? We have ideas … and here are our ideas.' I did not know much about Makkari or Jack Kirby’s Eternals before meeting with Chloé and Nate. After the meeting, I went down The Eternals rabbit hole and read as much as I could, both Jack Kirby’s version and Neil Gaiman’s version. The next time we connected, it was to offer me the role of Makkari!"
Ridloff will debut next month as the first Deaf character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in an updated twist on the source material from the comics. She will be joined last in November by real-life friend Alaqua Cox as Echo on Hawkeye. For Ridloff, working on such a big project has been not only a learning experience for her but also for those she works with. And the actor hopes the rest of the entertainment industry can learn to be more accessible for her community.
While Eternals looks to be a major and long-awaited step forward in terms of diversity for Marvel Studios, it will also have huge story impacts on the MCU. Though the characters themselves are relatively obscure, the movie is offering audiences a lot of reasons to show up to theaters on Nov. 5 and give it a chance.
Source:Â The Hollywood Reporter