Actor Mark Strong, previously rumored to be playing Shazam! villain Doctor Sivana talked about the movie, confirming his role.

From the premiere of Cirque du Soleil ‘OVO’ at The Royal Albert Hall in London, Strong (who you might’ve seen in last year’s Kingsmen: The Golden Circle) spilled on what it was like working with Warner Bros on a DC movie again, and confirmed his role in the process. He first talked about the secrecy surrounding the project.

“If you stop reading the script for 20 seconds then the whole thing goes fuzzy and you have to start again. Everything is watermarked and traceable too.”

Turns out the biggest leak was himself, as he gave the first details on his character. He wanted to get the DC villain role right after not being able to complete the arc for Sinestro, who he played in the 2011 Green Lantern movie.

“I’m playing an evil bastard called Doctor Sivana, they are always the best characters to play, the most fun. I was Sinestro in Green Lantern which I though was a rather good film but it didn’t do what they wanted so I feel like I’ve got unfinished business in the DC world, I played a pretty evil character in that and he was meant to get even worse in the second one but that never happened but I think I’m going to get the chance to do that in ‘Shazam!’, I hope so.”

He then talked about the training he’s had to go through for the role, and it sounds like the character in the movie will be deviating some from the comics.

“I’ve been training like a mad man, I’m about to go over and see the stunt guys, I’ve been trying all of these harnesses on and I think I’m going to be doing lots of flying around and firing electricity out of my hands.”

Now he could just be exaggerating, or guessing as to why he’ll be doing so much stunt work. The character in the comics doesn’t have any flashy powers like “firing electricity” from his hands. He’s a bit more like Lex Luthor, a genius businessman and scientist who uses his wealth and inventions to fight Shazam. He does, however, have the ability to see magic from his one scarred eye. They could be powering up the character to make him more of a physical threat to Zachary Levi‘s Shazam.

Finally, he talked about the tone of the movie, which is basically what the director and other actors have been saying for months, down to the comparison to ‘Big‘.

“It’s a funny film, it’s about a young boy who can become a superhero but still remains a young boy so there’s elements of ‘Big’ there’s elements of ‘Stranger Things’. I think originally the comic outsold ‘Superman’ in the 1940s.”

It’s exciting to hear that Strong is locked into the role. You’ll be able to see him as Doctor Sivana when Shazam! releases on April 5, 2019.

–Weston Sheffield

Source: Celebretainment