JK Simmons Admits He Has No Idea How Marvel & DC Multiverses Work
J.K. Simmons opens up in an interview and admits that he does not know how the various Marvel and DC multiverses work.
J.K. Simmons has confirmed that he has no idea how the various multiverses of Marvel or DC work. The Oscar-winner is one of the few performers to have roles in both major superhero franchises currently. Most recently, he can be seen in Spider-Man: No Way Home, and he will also appear in Batgirl later this year.
Simmons first entered the superhero landscape in 2002 with his role as J. Jonah Jameson in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. He would appear in all three Raimi Spider-Man movies before eventually making his way over to the DCEU to play Commissioner Gordon in Justice League and then again in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. He recently returned to the role of Jameson in the Marvel world by portraying an MCU variant of the beloved character, and he is soon poised to do something similar with Gordon when Batgirl premieres, as it currently remains unclear if this Gordon is the same Gordon he previously played, or an entirely new iteration.
With all of that confusion surrounding the multiverse, it appears that Simmons knows as little as audiences about the entire affair. In fact, during a recent chat with Variety, while attending the Critics Choice Awards, the actor noted that he still has “no idea” how these multiverses actually work and that he just does his job. Simmons explained:
It's super cool to be, and for there to be room in the Marvel Universe, as we've seen, and in the DC Universe for these alternative universes or realities or whatever they are, I don't know… I have no idea. They write a script and I learn the lines and the director says, 'Stand over there.'
For an actor such as Simmons, the process of untangling carious superhero continuities is likely harder than it is for most other performers. That is because of his long history with the genre, as well as the sheer number of multiverse-related stories he has involved himself in over the years. His role as J. Jonah Jameson alone is confusing enough, with the actor playing Jameson in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies, but then also crossing universes to the MCU for Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home, with potentially more MCU appearances on the way. Add the tangled web that is DCEU continuity, and it becomes incredibly difficult to decipher. That said, it’s clear that he is very much a fan of both worlds and enjoys what he does.
Ultimately, however, it seems that the simple approach may be the best for Simmons. It’s not necessarily his job to fully understand how these universes align with one another, and in some cases, it may arguably work to his benefit to simply perform the role as written in the script. Instead of worrying about whether he is playing a specific Jameson variant from a specific universe, he can instead focus on delivering the best possible performance based on the script that he is given.
Source: Variety