It's been more than a year since Iron Man 3 unmasked the Mandarin — which is to say, there wasn't really a Mandarin, not in the traditional sense, at least.

The film revealed that Ben Kingsley's "Mandarin" was nothing more than a washed-up actor serving as a mouthpiece for Guy Pearce's Aldrich Killian and his Extremis operation. While some fans took issue with the twist, Pearce remains excited about it.

"Personally, I loved it," he told IGN during a recent interview for The Rover, his new Australian thriller. "I was never a comic book fan growing up, so I have no attachment to the [Mandarin]. I mean, I get it. The loyalty to those characters, I totally get it."

"But based on the sort of single-entity movie — and particularly based on Ben Kingsley's performance — I just adored what that turned into," he continued. "But I do certainly understand that some die hard fans kind of went, 'Aww ... Come on!'"

(via Dark Horizons)