Marvel Studios' debut Special Presentation Werewolf by Night turned out to be a real crowd-pleaser upon its Disney+ premiere. Many have praised the fifty-minute-long short film as being a bold new project for the MCU as it expands into monstrous supernatural territory.
Of course, the special saw Gael Garcia Bernal's Jack Russell involve himself in a monster hunting competition under false pretenses; he was really there to rescue the creature who was being hunted. It’s only after his friend Tedd, aka Man-Thing, was saved that Jack’s other half was forced out into the open.
The mysterious artifact known as the Bloodstone was used to trigger Russell’s transformation into a werewolf, and the beast subsequently wreaked havoc on those around him. Little is known overall about Jack’s past in the MCU, but actor Gael Garcia Bernal revealed an interesting tidbit about exactly how long the character has been around.
Werewolf by Night Is Quite Long-lived
Speaking to the official Marvel website, Werewolf by Night star Gael Garcia Bernal revealed that his character, Jack Russell, could possibly be more than 300 years old in the MCU:
“Among the many aspects of a character like this, definitely the half-canine kind of aspect of the character, where all of these things helped me build the character and give body and color to the character. One of them, for example, was werewolves who lived many, many years. So who knows? Jack Russell maybe has been alive for the last 200, 300, or 400 years.”
Bernal also discussed building the foundations of a character possessing such longevity, adding that there’s an opportunity for the character to “go into different tangents.”
“So how would a character like this or someone that has lived so many years would react to the mundane or to the day-to-day? How would the conversations be engaged? You know, so things like that. And there’s a big possibility with a character like this to go into different tangents and to try out different things. So that’s how we started to build it and put it together. And at the same time, you kind of establish a little concept, but then you try it. And sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. And then you fix it. It’s a process, I guess.”
The actor also spoke about his interactions with Laura Donnelly’s Elsa Bloodstone and how Jack quickly sized her up when they met:
“They immediately sense, especially Jack, who has lived many years and can read the room a little bit, and he can understand a little bit who stands where. He knows more or less what Laura is up to in a way, the character of Elsa Bloodstone. So we just started to try out things and started to establish, OK, what would the conversations be about, what the approach would be, and what both characters are looking for.”
Bernal was sure to praise Donnelly and her performance, with the actress having served as his scene partner for most of the special:
“One of the things I mentioned at the beginning that I loved talking with Laura about because she really likes these characters. She’s a big fan of this character. So it was incredible to talk with her. And also, she’s a great actress and a great person to work with.”
Jack Russel Is Far From the Oldest MCU Character
The Werewolf may have been lurking around Earth-616 for centuries but he’s definitely not even close to being the oldest MCU character.
Right off the bat is Thor who is around 1,500 years old, with his pal Valkyrie being even older than that. Not to mention that Thor’s adopted brother Loki was exactly 1,054 years old when he died at the hands of Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War.
Shang-Chi’s father Wenwu lived about a thousand years until his recent death thanks to the power of the Ten Rings, and the original Captain America himself, Steve Rogers, was 105 years old in Endgame.
Still, Russell being as old as he is gave him a low-key demeanor in the special. One gets the sense that this wasn’t his first rodeo.
Marvel Studios’ Special Presentation: Werewolf by Night is now streaming only on Disney+.
