The Oscar-winning actor, who plays Kraven's trusted friend Calypso in Sony's new Spider-Man universe movie, says one "right" interpretation of a character "is not the point of art."
He’s feared as one of the world’s deadliest predators. But Oscar-winning actor Ariana DeBose — who plays Kraven’s trusted friend Calypso in Sony’s new Spider-Man universe movie “Kraven the Hunter”— wants you to rethink what you know about this supervillain.
“No matter how you view him, I don’t necessarily use the word ‘villain’ to describe him. I don’t necessarily use the word ‘hero’ to describe him,” she said in a video interview with NBC News about Kraven (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson).
DeBose says the movie shows complicated characters who are neither good nor evil, but shades of gray cutting both ways.
“Kraven the Hunter” releases nationwide Friday, and director J.C. Chandor features a Kraven who is a superhuman killer and a conservationist, as well as a fierce protector of his family.
“This film is all about motives and understanding why these characters are doing what they’re doing,” DeBose said.
She believes this steeps the film in a level of reality “that some of the previous Sony Marvel works have not” shown.
Viewers will see Kraven deliver a brutal hit on a kingpin in a maximum-security prison and eliminate poachers who raided a nature preserve, all while marking other enemy targets as prey. He also checks in on his brother (played by Fred Hechinger) as his gangster father (played by Russell Crowe) runs into trouble.
“Kraven the Hunter” is the first Spider-Man universe movie from Sony to get an R rating. And DeBose says that this gives both the film and its viewers the space to explore the origin and motives of characters who have been depicted as villains.
“I think it being rated R definitively liberated the film in a way. The reality is Kraven, even in the comics, is depicted as a vicious character,” she said. “And so I think it does allow the audience to really go on the journey and ask themselves questions of ‘who’s actually doing what?’ And ‘who has pure intentions?’ And ‘who’s doing this for personal gain?’”
When asked to define the motives of her character, DeBose said that she leaves that up to the audience.
“My goal was to play a woman at a transitional point in her life and to go on the journey,” she said. “I think it’s fun to buy into the origin story of it all, if that makes sense. So, as you’re getting to know Kraven, you’re getting to know Calypso.”
DeBose made history in 2022 when she became the first Afro Latina and first openly queer woman of color to win an Academy Award, when she took home the best supporting actress award for her role as Anita in Steven Spielberg’s remake of “West Side Story.” Before that, she was part of the original cast of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony Award-winning musical “Hamilton.”
And next year, DeBose will be teaming up with Oscar-winning actor Ke Huy Quan in the action comedy “Love Hurts.”
Looking back at other characters who inspired her to play Calypso, DeBose pointed to one not in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (commonly referred to as the MCU).
“I loved Disney’s interpretation of Maleficent and how you could take a character that’s historically deemed evil and give them an origin story that allows for explanation of one’s history and how they got to the point that they got to," DeBose said. "I love stories like that, which is probably why I was drawn to Kraven.”
Now, DeBose wants viewers to ask questions about the origins and motives of both Kraven and her character, Calypso, even if they've only known them in one way before.
"I think you have to make a wide variety of entertainment for audiences so that we don’t teach them that just one interpretation is the right or good interpretation. That’s not the point of art,” she said.
