While understandably absent from marketing, Academy Award-winning English actor Sir Ben Kingsley (Gandhi; Iron Man 3) is indeed back as Trevor Slattery in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, this time playing a supporting role that proves quite crucial to Shang-Chi's (Simu Liu) journey to Ta Lo.
During the recent global press conference, moderated by the always hilarious Ronny Chieng (who plays Jon Jon in the movie), Sir Kingsley was asked about his experience making the Academy Award-winning Gandhi (which netted him his Oscar), and whether he saw any similarities between the cultural impact of that iconic film - especially when it came to the portrayal of Asian characters in Hollywood - and this latest Marvel blockbuster.
After a beat, Kingsley, who is of Gujarati Indian descent, gave an Oscar-worthy response,
"Well, I think when you hear Destin describe the film, you know that the motives behind telling this story are pure, crystal clear, lucid, pure motives.
They are life-enhancing and they’re not patronizing because they do introduce us, in a beautiful way to memory, ancestry, loss, and families torn apart and reunited and reconfigured. This is from Destin’s heart and Kevin’s heart and the writer’s heart. And if your motives are pure as a storyteller, the angels will come to assist you with that story and to quote a great author, whom I admire greatly, 'To tell a story is to heal.'
I think that this story because it’s so beautifully told and so rich will ultimately be healing because it’s not propaganda. It’s just a really beautiful story. I, as an actor, Trevor, of course, is a Shakespearean actor and he finds himself transported into a completely exotic environment, but he survives. And thanks to the welcome that Kevin and Destin and my beautiful colleagues gave me, I have done seventeen out of Shakespeare’s whole canon of plays. So, I’m sort of a Shakespearean actor, but as soon as I arrived on set, the fact that my colleagues were from a different culture was immaterial.
Completely immaterial and irrelevant. We are actors together. We live on empathy and transformation, and this is our currency. All the rest is irrelevant and if we can demonstrate that energy, I think it will ultimately be soothing and healing and people will forget - oh, actually people will realize there’s very little difference in storytelling and very little difference in our hearts."
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is now playing in theaters worldwide. In our review of the movie, we said, "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is a genuine triumph for Marvel Studios, a true family drama with plenty of charm and a myriad of winning performances from the outstanding cast led by Simu Liu and Tony Leung. It opens a whole new world of possibilities for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and will hopefully leaving you dreaming of the countless mystical directions the story could go next…"
Marvel Studios’ “Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings” stars Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, who must confront the past he thought he left behind when he is drawn into the web of the mysterious Ten Rings organization. The film also stars Tony Leung as Wenwu, Awkwafina as Shang-Chi’s friend Katy and Michelle Yeoh as Jiang Nan, as well as Fala Chen, Meng’er Zhang, Florian Munteanu and Ronny Chieng. “Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings” is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and produced by Kevin Feige and Jonathan Schwartz, with Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso and Charles Newirth serving as executive producers.