Michael Mando kept the vigil for another nine years, hoping to return to the role again and when he finally did, he approached the character with the same mum-silence patience that has defined his work. In the Homecoming post-credits scene, the actor that played Better Call Saul returned to the role of Mac Gargan, this time in the fully suited Scorpion and prepared to fight Tom Holland’s Peter Parker. Elaborating on the comeback, Mando proposed that “once we got the cameras rolling it was strangely easy, kind of as if the character had just been waiting in the wings.
[He] never really pushed the idea of the comeback out loud, so once 2017 was out, I just believed that, if it was supposed to happen, it would happen.” With the chance to revisit Gargan by writer/producer Amy Pascal and director Destin Daniel Cretton, he was “ready to listen” rather than presume the script would fall into place.
Based on the actor, what was seen on screen is merely the first chapter. Mando has previously been consistent in saying that Brand New Day is “first level” in the evolving scope of the character. From the comic pages Mac Gargan develops well beyond the armored killer with the freakish tail. One of these subsequent developments involves his absorption by the Venom symbiote, a step Mando openly advocates and describes as the definitive progression of the role. He and Cretton discussed the comic book progression while filming but Mando is a player that doesn’t get too excited too quickly.
That’s a discussion for Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal, he confides. Part of what made this take feel so fleshed out was the opportunity to examine Gargan’s interior life. Mando characterizes her as a reform-minded man who trusted law-and-order figures and was let down by the Department of Damage Control’s mishandling of volatile technology. Such disillusionment formed an unexpected point of kinship with Sadie Sink’s character, whose protectiveness of her sister motivates her every move.: The physical aspect of the performance also necessitated preparation.
Thrweighing when literally just getting back into the full Scorpion garb was something of a feat, requiring a combination of technical and mental adjustments. As Mando has put it, refiguring the shape and voice of that character was very much a group effort; ndMando also cited Cretton’s straightforward approach as instrumental in managing the long sitting in a hotel room.
For a character initially introduced as an obscure part of the Spider-Man universe, the additional accessibility afforded by Brand New Day is a silent achievement. Mando has never been one to complain that he is not given bigger parts.