Doctor Strange: Chiwetel Ejiofor Addresses Possible MCU Return as Karl Mordo
Doctor Strange star Chiwetel Ejiofor isn’t ready to say goodbye to Karl Mordo just yet.
What role does Karl Mordo play in the Doctor Strange movies?
Introduced in 2016’s Doctor Strange, Ejiofor’s Karl Mordo is one of the Masters of the Mystic Arts, and the person responsible for welcoming Benedict Cumberbatch’s Dr. Stephen Strange into Kamar-Taj. Along with Benedict Wong’s Wong, Mordo trains Strange to master the Mystic Arts and later assists him in defeating Kaecilius. The movie ends with Mordo growing disillusioned with the Mystic Arts, leading him down a villainous path as he seeks to strip sorcerers of all their powers.
In an interview with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast (via ComicBookMovie.com), Ejiofor touched on Mordo’s unresolved storyline in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The 2022 sequel, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, opted not to pick up on the Mordo hunting sorcerers plot thread, instead focusing on Strange traveling the MCU Multiverse. Ejiofor did appear in Multiverse of Madness, albeit as the Earth-838 variant of Mordo.
Ejiofor shared with Horowitz that he had been informed by Marvel shortly after being cast in Doctor Strange what the long-term plans were for Karl Mordo in the MCU, although he admitted that even then he knew that “they would be subject to manipulation, change, or reinvention.”
He continued, “There’s still the opportunity for different aspects of that to come to fruition and, to be honest, there were completely new areas for Mordo that didn’t exist in the conversation at that time which also have all this capacity and potential. It definitely depends, which I think is exciting, on the vision. An individual or the team’s vision for those stories as they move forward. I’m excited about [that].”
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Ejiofor doesn’t feel like his time in the MCU is over, sharing that it is “a world that still holds a lot of excitement for me.” He added, “I think there’s a beautiful open door there and just finding the moment to tell those stories where it’s genuinely the most exciting part of that story you can tell and focus a light on. I think has the potential to be really remarkable.”
Check out the complete conversation between Ejiofor and Horowitz below:
Ejiofor will next be seen in the Sony/Marvel movie, Venom: The Last Dance, opposite Tom Hardy and Juno Temple. The fifth installment in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe finds “Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie’s last dance,” per the official synopsis.
Both Doctor Strange movies are streaming on Disney+.
