‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’: Daniel Brühl Does Not Think Marvel Fans Should Trust Zemo
After Captain America: Civil War, it was unclear if Daniel Brühl would ever return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Helmut Zemo. The character was then brought back for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+.
Throughout the miniseries, Zemo has become a breakout character and steals every scene he is in. Despite becoming beloved by Marvel fans, Brühl does not think fans of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier should ever trust Zemo.
[Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for Episode 5 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.]
Zemo should not be trusted in ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’
In the fifth episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the Dora Milaje arrest Zemo to be imprisoned on the Raft. Before he is arrested, he provides closure to Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), seemingly ending his arc on a high note.
Of course, only time will tell if Zemo actually stays imprisoned. While speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Brühl shared that despite his humanity in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo should not be trusted.
“No, never,” he said. “And that’s the good thing. If it’s hard to read and tell what somebody is up to, that ambiguity — which people always enjoy and I do enjoy — is always fun. So, yeah, you shouldn’t really trust him. But I guess it has become apparent that he is not an evil supervillain; there’s more to him, which we already know from the other movie.”
Through The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Marvel fans saw more layers to Zemo. Even though Brühl does not agree with some of Zemo’s tactics, he acknowledges that fans might be drawn to the character.
“… we have intensified the very human side of Zemo. I disagree with his radical methods, but it’s understandable based on where he comes from. So I understand if people empathize with Zemo, and I would understand if everybody joins Team Zemo by the end of the show,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.
Zemo is different in ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’
One of the benefits of shows like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is that characters that fans love from the movies have more screen time. Because of this, Brühl was able to explore new sides of Zemo.
“We saw a very serious, determined, driven and grounded man in Civil War, but we didn’t see the iconic Zemo from the comic books. We also didn’t get to know about his aristocratic background and all these things that I had always envisioned when thinking of this character,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.
Brühl continued, “So the fact that they kept the interesting background of Zemo in Civil War, but added all these layers, made it very compelling.”
Daniel Brühl improvised two big scenes in the Disney+ show
In the third episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Sam Wilson/Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Bucky, and Zemo travel to Madripoor to find the person responsible for recreating the Super Soldier Serum.
While undercover in Madripoor, Zemo convinces Bucky to pretend to be the Winter Soldier. Under this guise, Zemo messes with Bucky’s chin. Because Bucky was pretending to be under Zemo’s control as the Winter Soldier, he could not object.
“That was improvised,” Brühl said. “And I knew how much Sebastian was suffering. There were a couple of takes where he couldn’t deal with it.”
In another scene in the episode, the three characters go undercover in a club and Zemo dances. After the episode premiered, Zemo’s dance moves went viral and it turns out Brühl improvised that too.
“Another thing that I’m very happy they kept was the dance,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.
Episode 6 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier will premiere on Disney+ on April 23.
