Iron Man 3's Mandarin Twist Landed Ben Kingsley The Role Of Another Huge Coward
Shane Black's 2013 superhero film "Iron Man 3" (or "Iron Man Three," as it appears on screen) is handily one of the best films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It depicted a beleaguered and emotionally wounded Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) working through his battlefield trauma by building multiple Iron Man suits in his lab, and trying his hardest not to fight. That plan is interrupted by the appearance of a vicious terrorist calling himself the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), a ring-wearing murderer who is behind a series of deadly bombings around the world. Tony, in a fit of rage, gives out his previously secret home address on national TV, instigating an immediate attack from the Mandarin that destroys Tony's massive Malibu home. Oops.
Tony, naturally, goes on a worldwide hunt to find the Mandarin and bring him to justice, which he eventually does. In one of the MCU's cleverest twists, however, it is revealed that the Mandarin is fake. The threatening terrorist seen on the world's TV screens is nothing more than an actor named Trevor Slattery, hired by the film's real big-bad — a man named Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce). Trevor is happy to serve Killian in exchange for drugs and access to sex workers. Trevor is an amusing buffoon who undercuts the predictable evil of an off-the-rack Marvel villain with racist origins.
It seems that Mary Harron, director of the 2022 film "Dalíland," saw "Iron Man 3" and was so impressed by Kingsley's comedic cowardice as Trevor that she cast him as Saldavor Dalí, meant to be depicted as another buffoonish character. She talked about her decision in the latest issue of Total Film Magazine.
A wonderful coward
Casting Kingsley in any role will be a boon; he is one of the best actors of his generation, endlessly game, and possessed of some of the greatest range one will find anywhere. Casting him as Salvador Dalí, however, was rather clever. Harron, in researching "Dalíland," found the painter and sculptor to be childish and cowardly — qualities that, in her mind, linked right up to Trevor Slattery in "Iron Man 3." Before seeing that movie, she had struggled to picture Kingsley in the role:
"I remember when his agent suggested that, I said, 'But he's so powerful!' I was thinking of 'Sexy Beast' and 'Gandhi.' And Dalí was a tremendous coward! Like a child in a lot of ways and a hypochondriac. Also, we were watching 'Iron Man 3,' where he's the scary character and then he's playing this cowardly British actor, Trevor, and he's so funny. The other thing about Ben, he's fearless. He said, 'I'm terrified of playing Salvador Dali.' But he really will go there and take on an icon, which a lot of people don't want to do."
At the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022, as reported by The Wrap, Harron made similar comparisons, noting that she had never seen Kingsley perform such a broadly comedic role before. "He was brilliant," she said, "But we hadn't seen that aspect of his range. And we said, 'Wow, it's so loose and funny and goofy,' and that was Dalí."
Kingsley returned to the role of Trevor Slattery for the MCU film "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings." He was just as funny the second time.