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It’s beginning to feel like it’s hard to imagine anyone else besides Charlie Cox playing Daredevil. Sure we can all have a good chuckle at the thought of Ben Affleck cramming into that red leather suit. But Cox has played Matt Murdock for nearly 10 years not only in the Daredevil Netflix series but in Daredevil: Born Again, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Echo, and Spider-Man: No Way Home. Cox even voiced him in two episodes of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. So he’s embodied Murdock for a quarter of his life. 

So it makes sense that Cox would bring up the subject of the feelings he’ll likely be confronted with when he can’t put on the costume for the camera, in his conversation with Agatha All Along's Joe Locke in their episode of Variety’s Actors on Actors.

“There is a thing where if you played a character on television, where you’ve done it over multiple years, rather than a movie where it’s probably, you know, six months at most,” Cox reflected. “When you do finally finish the job, there is a slight weird mourning process for this character that you’ve become very attached to. 

“Oh this person will not be part of my life at all anymore. It’s a little painful, it’s a little weird. It’s confronting in an odd way because that character doesn’t really exist outside of you, but yet it’s, it’ll probably be emotional.”

Locke can relate having played Charlie Spring in Heartstopper for three seasons. He also played three different roles in Agatha All Along. He has a different thought, that you can become complacent in playing one role for too long. 

“I feel like I’m not doing all the work, because I know the character so well,” Locke lamented. “By season three I felt I was lazy and then I’d have instincts about it, no-no, you should think about it first before you–and I’ve been doing that for four years.”

Cox insists it’s a good thing. He has a theory that when you watch the third or fourth season of a popular show you see characters suddenly become bigger than they ever were. 

“I think it’s because of what you just said, where when you first got the job, you did all this work, and you kind of built this character,” explained Cox. “You get so used to embodying it, that character, that it starts to feel like you’re not doing anything. Then you start adding to it and suddenly becomes this character that almost starts to become a caricature.”

“I make sure I really have considered the scene and you know what’s going on in the story, and all of those things. But in general, the more relaxed you can be, the better the work will be. Acknowledging that is a really good thing.”

“That’s a constant balance, throughout my whole career, has been like the balance between instinct and work. I’m someone who likes to apply myself, I like to work hard, I like to really give it everything. It can in work in opposition to this career, because so much of the good work has to come from relaxation and not trying hard. Like if you’re trying hard on camera, it doesn’t translate all. You got to put the work in at home, and try not to care at all. I think.”

Locke summed up the segment by saying, “it seems to be going well for you.”

Clearly, Cox has thought long and hard about doing whatever he can to avoid feeling that mourning process with Matt Murdock. We’ll see if Marvel Studios actually pulls Daredevil into the Cinematic Universe in something more than a cameo. It’s the last step for Cox's version of Matt Murdock to make, to step out of the shadows of Hell’s Kitchen and into a feature role in the MCU.

Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:

• How to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe in release or chronological order
• The best Marvel Comics stories of all time
• All the MCU movies ranked from best to worst
• Our weekly Marvel insider's column, Marvel Matters