Alfred Molina has a lot of projects he’s been working on, including two that came out this month, first the Netflix film Remarkably Bright Creatures, based on the bestselling novel, and this week, the new series The Boroughs, also streaming at Netflix.
While the latter is a sci-fi dramedy that sees the actor as a man living in a retirement community who teams up with friends to battle an otherworldly threat, Remarkably Bright Creatures featured Molina as the voice of Marcellus, a giant octopus.
This gave many fans a chuckle, seeing as one of Molina’s biggest roles is that of Doc Ock in the Spider-Man franchise. He played the part in the 2004 film Spider-Man 2, but he returned for Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), so it was even more fresh in fans’ minds.
While on a press tour for The Boroughs, Molina was asked by ComicBook what he thought about playing an octopus yet again. He responded happily, “When they offered me that part, I thought, ‘Is this some kind of sick joke?! I dunno… but it worked out great!”
He went on to talk about the fact that while he doesn’t identify with octopi, he doesn’t necessarily know much of anything his characters are savvy about, but with believable acting, he’s able to get by:
“The great thing about playing these characters is you don’t have to have their knowledge. All you have to do is fake it enough that the audience suspend their disbelief. For instance, the scene in The Boroughs where I fix Geena’s car, I didn’t do anything.
“I just put a spanner against the piece of metal and I took the crowbar and stuck that in there too and I just prayed they were going to cut above my hands and everything would be fine… And it was the same thing with Doc Ock.
“All that crazy science stuff, all that pseudo-science – the inhibitor chip and all that, I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. The trick is to do it in an authentic way so the audience goes ‘yeah, okay, I’ll buy that.”
Molina is a great actor, and I always buy what he’s presenting. Remarkably Bright Creatures and The Boroughs are both streaming now on Netflix.
