Gael García Bernal Says Marvel’s Secrecy Gave ‘Werewolf by Night’ More ‘Freedom’
Whether you like them or not, Marvel movies and TV projects tend to follow a certain formula. This reality is part of what makes Werewolf by Night, the surprise Halloween special on Disney+, such an exciting release. Directed by well-known composer Michael Giacchino, the special revives a little-known character and uses the aesthetic of the original Universal Monsters and Hammer Horror films as its chief inspiration.
Since Marvel has no bigger plans for this story to intersect with the wider MCU (at least for now), Werewolf by Night had the space to take more creative chances than its peers, something the cast greatly appreciated during production.
In ‘Werewolf by Night’, Gael García Bernal plays a monster hunter with a transformational secret
Werewolf by Night centers on Jack (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Elsa Bloodstone (Laura Donnelly), two of five monster hunters invited to the house of Ulysses Bloodstone after his death. After the patriarch’s passing, Ulysses’ widow Verussa sets up a hunting competition for the group, with the winner becoming the new owner of the Bloodstone, his namesake weapon of choice that grants the user an untouchable level of power and strength.
The two leads enter the competition with their own reasons to be there. Elsa wants to take control of her family legacy, and Jack has a personal connection to the monster they’re supposed to kill that also connects to the secret about what he really is that completely changes the game after it is revealed.
The cast had fun with the looser environment on set
Bernal and Donnelly sat down for an interview about Werewolf with Entertainment Tonight at the recent D23 Expo. Bernal and Giacchino first met during the production of another Disney project, the 2017 animated film Coco. Around this time, the composer first pitched the idea to Bernal, and even though he had no material to make the concept tangible during that meeting, Bernal was quickly seduced by the world.
“As soon as I heard “Werewolf”, you know where it was going [and] I was like “hey, this sounds really good,” the actor said.
Werewolf by Night doesn’t come with the stakes of a traditional Marvel property, which allowed the filmmakers to play with the form in a way that an Avengers movie never can. The old-school horror vibe of the movie encouraged Bernal and the other cast members to take more risks with their performances, comparing the process to that of jazz musicians. The low profile of the production also made it easier for them to try stuff without much pressure.
“There’s a lot of freedom to play around us as well because everything is behind [closed] doors,” said Bernal. “Nobody sees it, nobody knows about what goes on about a really bad idea or really good ones that we never managed to do, so we start to put it together and the fact that it’s you know it’s taken care [of] like that, it’s exciting.”
‘Werewolf by Night’ is a much-needed experiment within the MCU
Werewolf by Night is a slight, but enjoyable tale perfect for the spooky season. The special is a nice change of pace for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Superhero fatigue is a real issue for the company to navigate. The MCU is now an everpresent piece of pop culture, and while the constant interweaving storylines compels many fans to devour every piece of content for clues and hints about where the next phase is going, the novelty of this enterprise has long since faded, and keeping up with all of the different strands can be exhausting. The standalone nature of Werewolf by Night makes the special a necessary piece of variety.
That said, there’s still a chance that Marvel brings these stories into the greater world at some point in the future. Monsters could play a bigger role in the MCU after the Blade reboot finally makes it to theaters, but Werewolf by Night still has plenty of merit as a one-off story.
