Finn Jones on Iron Fist's Journey with THE DEFENDERS and His Relationship with Luke Cage
The latest interview to come out of Entertainment Weekly's The Defenders cover story is from actor Finn Jones who plays Danny Rand, a.k.a. Iron Fist. He is the last character on The Defenders team to get his own series, and when talking about the character's transition from that to The Defenders Jones says:
“Iron Fist is like Danny in his adolescence, and The Defenders is like Danny taking responsibility and moving forward with his purpose. He’s craving desperately for family, for help, for guidance, for people to learn from, and for a team [in The Defenders]. But because of what happens in Iron Fist, he’s very untrusting. It’s really his way or no way.”
Jones goes on to explains that The Defenders will continue Iron Fist's story arc and journey from season one saying:
“I see it as kind of this journey where Iron Fist and The Defenders is like the complete first season of Danny’s journey. It’s really nice to play it back-to-back because Danny does go through this awesome huge arc, so the end of Iron Fist is like the halfway point… In The Defenders, he’s got a grasp of who he is and he’s trying to do something with it. It’s great to play that consistently over the year and not have that broken up.”
The actor also goes on to discuss Iron Fist's relationship with Luke Cage. As you know, these two have a great comic book history together, and we're finally going to get to see that friendship explored in The Defenders.
“I love Mike, he’s so sweet. We’re working together really well, which is f—ing cool. So far all of our stuff has been like, 'Whoa!' … It’s a really big thing among the fan base, and that aspect is coming through really well.”
When comparing the Marvel Netflix version of the characters to the comic book versions, Finn says:
“The great thing about the comic books is they’re fantastic but they’re — and I don’t want to say two-dimensional — they’re comic books, and what we’re doing is we’re making more fleshed-out characters who have real problems with the world. There’s more to Danny and Luke’s characters and what they can bring to each other than the comic books ever came upon.”
As for what that relationship looks like, Mike Colter previously teased what we can expect saying:
“He’s a young guy. There’s an exuberance that Iron Fist comes with that Luke Cage wants to temper a bit. It can’t help but have a wisdom-versus-youth quality… Danny comes out like a bull in a china shop in some ways, and I think Luke has seen the world and knows certain things. It’s a cool combination that’ll work out.”
There's a lot of exciting stuff that we can look forward to seeing in The Defenders, and watching these two character's friendship flourish is going to be pretty exciting. The Defenders is set to premiere on Netflix in July 2017.