Thandiwe Newton Rejected Mom Who Dies in Superhero Movie Role

  • Newton is up for being in a superhero movie. But it needs to be a meaty role.
  • She said her response after being offered the part of a mother who “just dies” was “Meh, no.”
  • Newton said recently “there is better substance around these superhero things.”

Thandiwe Newton is open to being in a superhero movie, but there’s got to be some substance to the role.

“I was offered a role playing someone’s mum who just dies,” the actress revealed to LAD Bible recently. “I was like, ‘Meh, no.'”

The “Westworld” star did admit though that now more than ever superhero movies are evolving and she wants to be part. 

“The perfect example is Taika Waititi, what he did with ‘Ragnarok,'” Newton said of the 2017 “Thor” movie. “I love that the actors in it really want to push it too, of course they do — it’s boring otherwise, Jesus.”

Newton said that previously she wasn’t interested in starring in the superhero genre because it was so focused on big box office success.

“As a genre they bore me these big franchises, and I’m quite cynical about it too because it’s just about money,” she continued. “It’s this behemoth of money that’s just like rolling forward gathering more money, right?”

Thandiwe Newton Solo

Thandiwe Newton said she was originally not supposed to be killed off in “Solo: A Star Wars Story.”

S & A


“But now I feel like there is a demand from both the audience,” she said. “I think people who are involved in the movies — but certainly the world — that there is better substance around these superhero things.”

Newton, who currently stars in the thriller “Reminiscence” opposite Hugh Jackman, has dabbled in big blockbusters in the past, but they haven’t been the most memorable experiences, she’s said previously.

In 2020 she said it was a “nightmare” working alongside Tom Cruise on 2000’s “Mission: Impossible 2;” and just last week she revealed how disappointed she was that her character in 2018’s “Solo: A Star Wars Story” was killed off.

“Actually, in the script, she wasn’t killed,” she told Inverse of playing Val in the standalone “Star Wars” movie. “It happened during filming. And it was much more just to do with the time we had to do the scenes. It’s much easier just to have me die than it is to have me fall into a vacuum of space so I can come back sometime.”

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