Entertainment
Born Again’s Michael Gandolfini Teases How Daniel’s Shocking Choice Could Fuel Season 3
Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Daredevil: Born Again, Season 2, Episode 7
Summary
Ahead of Daredevil: Born Again’s Season 2 finale next week, the Marvel series finally closes in on one of its most slippery and quietly tragic players in Episode 7’s “The Hateful Darkness.” Since the revival’s first season on Disney+, Michael Gandolfini’s Daniel Blake has spent so much of his time trying to prove who he can be inside Wilson Fisk’s (Vincent D’Onofrio) orbit while drifting further into a machine he never fully understood until it was too late.
By the end of the hour and after Karen’s (Deborah Ann Woll) trial, Daniel’s panicked attempt to get BB (Genneya Walton) out of danger amid Fisk’s political grip tightening finds the show hits a brutal stop when Buck kills him outright. That final stretch is what makes Daniel’s death hit so hard. While he saves BB’s life and is a hero at the end of it, his fate doesn’t let him off the hook. Though scared and guilty, he is finally honest about how deep he’s fallen, which is exactly what Gandolfini tells Collider clicked for him in Daniel’s final turn.
In a conversation about “The Hateful Darkness,” the key moment for the 26-year-old is when Daniel admits, “It’s not just Fisk and Buck. It’s me too. I went out, and I buried a body with Buck, and I wish I didn’t know I did that.” For Gandolfini, that’s the edge of the character, the moment Daniel fully understands he’s gone too far. In what will no doubt feel like a jolt to audiences, Daniel spends his last scenes trying to protect BB, telling her to get out while he still can, but Born Again never gives him a neat goodbye or some big redemption beat.
Gandolfini says that messiness was part of what made the death work, explaining how Daniel dies “in the middle of all of the stuff,” without any parts of his life being resolved. In the penultimate episode of the season, that unfinished feeling is exactly the point for Daredevil: Born Again, as Daniel doesn’t die a martyr or a mastermind — just as someone who got pulled too close to Fisk’s darkness. In an exclusive interview with Collider, Gandolfini breaks it down and suggests what’s next for the show after his character’s tragic death.
Gandolfini Says Marvel Let Him Build a Character “From the Ground Up” for ‘Daredevil: Born Again’
Without the constraints of comic canon, Gandolfini says he could explore a messier, more human performance.
COLLIDER: I know the show has a really great way of mixing the chaos of vigilante justice and City Hall politics, and it’s all part of the same ecosystem, but I’m so curious, what was the most fun about playing in this Marvel playground that puts those two together?
MICHAEL GANDOLFINI: For me, Marvel has been so unbelievably kind and amazing to me. When we first started conversations, I said I really wanted to play a real person. I really care most about moral problems or relational problems in relationships, and they were so amazing in staying committed to that. Often, because it’s these amazing heroes that people want to see, sometimes the other stuff can get lost, and you can lose some of the human relationships and things like that, but Daredevil specifically is amazing at staying really strong to the core, whether it’s Matt and Foggy’s friendship or Ben Urich and Karen. There are people, these humans, that don’t have these powers, who make as big of an impact on the show and on the world. So I was just so grateful that I got to have such a real arc and got to work with the great actors and really have an effect on the show. I was just so stoked and excited to be a part of that. It makes the action stuff more fun. I haven’t seen any of it, so when I see it, it’s like, “Oh, this is so cool!”
The character is one that they built from the ground up. He’s not been in the comic books at all. Was that also liberating for you that you got to play with that character and then also talk to the writers about where you want to go with him?
GANDOLFINI: 100%. There’s no box, right? I think sometimes if you’re a lead in a film or a superhero, or playing someone with IP, you are boxed into some sort of constraint. You have to show an arc. You have to be the moral arc. I watched this great interview with Christian Bale recently. He was saying that when he was in Batman, he was talking with [Christopher] Nolan, and he was watching Heath Ledger‘s unbelievable performance, and he was like, “Oh God, am I boring? I can only be the good guy. I stand for the good.” And it’s hard sometimes when you have those constraints. Daniel doesn’t. I can go anywhere I want, I can try anything I want. He can be bad, he can be good, he can be dirty, clean. He can sort of be human, be extra human because there are no constraints, and that is so fun and so liberating.
Gandolfini Pinpoints the Moment Daniel Knows He’s Gone Too Far in ‘Born Again’
He points to one chilling confession as the moment Daniel realizes just how far he’s fallen.
Daniel does start the season trying to prove himself as this loyal operator, but by Episode 7, we can see he’s also very terrified of the machine that he’s helped build. Was there a specific moment where you felt he realized, “I’ve gone too far?”
GANDOLFINI: It’s a great question. There’s a great line that always really spoke to me. He looks at BB, and he says, “It’s not just Fisk and Buck. It’s me too. I went out, and I buried a body with Buck, and I wish I didn’t know I did that.” I think that right there, in that moment, I think it’s right at the edge. “I wish I didn’t know I did that.” That’s when he feels he’s gone too far. But I also think that if you ask Daniel, in the afterlife, “Would you have done anything different?” I don’t know if he would have. I think he was at peace with every decision he made, even the bad ones.
He does spend so much of the season trying to impress Fisk and also becoming this sort of pal to Buck, and sees how power works through the two of them. Did you approach those scenes as Daniel trying to emulate them or as someone realizing he could actually never really become them because there is such a different relationship between the two of them?
GANDOLFINI: That’s such a good question. Yeah, he does try to emulate. I think he’s a big chameleon. Whoever’s in front of him, he’s going to become that person. He’s going to morph into their morals, and he’s going to support that side of them. So, when it’s BB, he’s like, “Okay, I’m with BB, I’m aligned with BB. I agree. I’m with you.” When it’s Buck, it’s the same.
The writing really is quite amazing because he loves them both. So in many ways, by Episodes 5, 6, and 7, every scene is either about loving Buck or about loving BB, and he loves them both. It’s not clear. And both are problematic. Both can help him or hurt him. So that’s why I think it’s very gray. It’s not so cut and dry. That’s why when BB says, “Buck’s a bad guy,” whether he’s scared of Buck or not doesn’t really matter. He knows who Buck is.
Gandolfini Says Daniel’s Death Worked Because It Was So Messy
With no real closure for BB, Fisk, or his family, Daniel dies with every important relationship left unfinished.
I am sad that we don’t have that relationship anymore between Daniel and BB, because I loved where it was going, and I was like, “Oh, look at the two of them. They’re starting to connect.” That was tragic. That’s the part where I think a lot of fans are going to react to that, because they’re starting to see another layer of Daniel open up. What was it like working with Genneya [Waltong] in those last scenes? It was a very terrifying moment for us, as an audience, wondering what was going to happen next to your character.
GANDOLFINI: It was so interesting. Look, when me and her go to Daniel’s mom’s house, we talked a lot, and we really worked on it, and it just was so natural. She’s so talented, and working off her was such a gift. He’s so stressed, and she’s so strong. She’s so rooted in reality, and he’s so kind of crazed. It was just this beautiful thing. Our last scene together, it still wasn’t 100% clear if I was going to die or not. That was not really 100% written in stone yet when we finished Season 2. That was decided in post. So our goodbye kind of didn’t feel like goodbye. I think that it’s played sort of like where he says, “Get on the train. Don’t come back.” It’s a sweet scene, but there’s no leaning into that it’s the last time they’re going to see each other. You really don’t feel that, and I think that’s what makes his death so shocking. Because there is so much real unfinished business. It’s not like him, and her get a good goodbye.
The last scene with his mom, he says, “Everything’s fine. I love you. Everything’s okay. Don’t worry.” His last scene with Fisk is at the funeral. You don’t even see a goodbye. His last scene with Buck. He and Sheila, their last scene’s at the boxing match. All these people don’t have any closed loops, and so when he dies, it’s just like, wow, he’s just hanging there, and I think that it’s painful.
The actress also reveals what she definitely won’t miss about playing Vanessa.
It’s very painful, but BB survived Daniel and all the things that have happened. In some ways, I did find that she’s carrying the truth of who he was at his worst and at his best. Do you think Daniel understands in the end that the real consequence of loving her is leaving her now with that weight that she has to make sure his name doesn’t also go down in vain?
GANDOLFINI: It’s a good question. I think that he would just want BB to be safe. I think he would just want her to be okay, you know? But it’s such a brilliant and amazing thing for Genneya. We were talking about it. She is now at the epicenter of this thing, with her uncle dying and now Daniel dying. She’s been scorned so many times. She has seen the direct effects of Fisk’s brutality, and so I can’t wait to see. I don’t know anything about Season 3, so I don’t know where it’s going, but I really hope they take advantage of that because that is something that really has kind of a fire lit under her now with his death. I don’t know where she is or where she’s going, but I can’t wait to tune in on Season 3 and find out.
You said before that you didn’t know that that was coming in the script until later on. What was your reaction when they told you, “This is how we’re going to actually go with the direction,” and do you see that now as a redemption arc for Daniel?
GANDOLFINI: Totally. It manifested itself really appropriately. I filmed scenes in Episode 8, and they just felt very weird. There were a lot of conversations about it. I was just like, “I don’t understand his place. Where is he going? He’s scorned Fisk and Buck. What’s his next chapter?” It felt really weird. It didn’t feel right. So when I got the call a couple of months later, and they said, “Hey, we decided, actually, he dies there,” it was like, yeah, that’s right. It actually felt like a relief because it felt very appropriate, because that’s what needed to happen, not only for the arc of the show, but also personally. It just felt like the right thing.
The fact that I didn’t know made it so much better because if Dario [Scardapane] had thought, “Daniel dies in [Episode] 7,” he might have tied up some of those loose ends. The script metaphorically would have been “tighter” or whatever, but because it’s messy, because he dies in the middle of all of the stuff, it’s quite shocking. So, it just felt so right. I remember telling them, “Look, I’m happy to fight. If I thought this wasn’t right, I’d fight, but this is right. This is right.”
Gandolfini Hopes BB Carries Daniel’s Death Into ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Season 3
He says BB is now perfectly positioned to push back after witnessing the human cost of Fisk’s brutality.
I’m sure the entire season, it was shenanigans behind the scenes with you and Arty [Froushan], and even Vincent [D’Onofrio], too. What was that dynamic like, especially getting to the end? Because I don’t think there are conflicted feelings for Buck’s character when he’s pulling that trigger, because he’s a very cold person. He will just do the job that he needs to do. I’m wondering what that dynamic was like because you and Arty have great chemistry, so that was fun to see on screen.
GANDOLFINI: Totally. We have the best time. We went upstate for that episode, and we stayed in a hotel together, and he kept complaining about my snoring, and he’s got the earbuds and the eye mask and the whole thing. We had the best time. I love him so much. We had so much fun together. I was the one who called him, and I said, “You kill me.” And he was distraught. He was like, “No.” And I was like, “Yeah. They added a thing.” And he was like, “I can’t believe that.”
I don’t know what happens, but I do think that was hard for Buck. I think it’s harder for him than normal. I do think he really likes Daniel. He says throughout the season, there’s more to him than you think. What Episode 5 is, I think, is a little misconstrued. Episode 5 isn’t to scare him. It’s to show him, “We want to invite you into our thing. It’s scary, and it’s dark, but if you do your job right, if you do your job…” That’s what that monologue’s about when he’s talking about Helmand and killing the people in Afghanistan. I say, “Well, what did you do?” And he said, “I followed orders.” So Buck is saying, “Come join us. Just follow orders. There’s no moral attachment to killing someone. There’s no moral attachment to burying a body. It’s just following orders.” And I think he wants Daniel to sign up for that.
I do think Daniel’s death comes at the exact moment when he makes this very clear moral choice, and that is the heart of the show, seeing from the eyes of this person who was so enamored with the world of Fisk, and then they start to see all the things that are coming up. What do you think the show is saying now, with the end of what we see with Daniel, especially now that BB’s in a position to carry that forward for Season 3? I know you don’t know what’s going to happen for Season 3, but I’m curious what your character will unleash for Season 3.
GANDOLFINI: I hope that BB goes on a vengeance. I thought that her and Karen, there was one scene with Genneya and Deborah [Ann Woll] that was so magnetic. They have great chemistry, so I really want to see them together more, kind of teaming up.
I’m so excited to see where Vincent and Charlie [Cox] go, where they are. Because I don’t know anything, and I’m a fan, so I’m really excited. Obviously, Wilson’s having such a moment. Bullseye is such a great, fun, amazing character. He’s doing such good work, so what’s going to happen with him? I can’t wait to see it.
Daredevil: Born Again streams its Season 2 finale on Tuesday, May 5, on Disney+.
Daredevil: Born Again
- Release Date
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March 4, 2025
- Network
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Disney+
- Showrunner
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Dario Scardapane
- Directors
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Aaron Moorhead, Justin Benson, David Boyd, Jeffrey Nachmanoff
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