The Disney+ series Daredevil: Born Again is famous for its iconic hallway fight scenes, so it’s no surprise that the season ends with another epic moment.
The episode begins with Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) receiving treatment after being shot in the previous episode and arriving late for Karen Page’s (Deborah Ann Woll) trial. Heather Glenn (Margarita Levieva) and Kingpin aka Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) both testify in the anti-vigilante case, but Murdock reveals to everyone in the courtroom that he is actually Daredevil, attracting attention as a key witness. When Kingpin’s case is dismissed, he is sued by the attorney general and told to resign as mayor, but not before inciting a riot in court. He orders the police to march to the courthouse, and pro-Daredevil civilians don red masks and fight back.
Action director Philip J. Silvera spent three days preparing for each match. Daredevil had 3 days, Kingpin had 3 days. He added, “We shot all of them in one day.”
When designing the fight, he knew that Daredevil and Kingpin shared a common bond. “They each love New York so much and they want the same thing from different sides of the same coin, and that’s the juxtaposition of these two characters,” he says.
Silvera, who worked on Season 1, is well-versed in the world of stunts and “Daredevil.” But no matter how extensive the battle sequences needed to be, storytelling was still paramount to Silvera, and the action needed to be driven by the characters’ emotions. “The fact that we’re trying to outdo ourselves is never important,” he says.
Kingpin’s season begins with him being elected mayor by the people of New York City. However, in the end, the city and its people turned against him. Silvera explains that when Kingpin gets into an emotional moment, he loses all composure. “This is the first time anyone has seen it,” he explains. Silvera said Kingpin sees red. “That first blow showed me how deadly and powerful he was,” the Kingpin said as he walked out into the hallway, “and then I took down the biggest guy. And then I started to feel like I was trapped.”
The riot scene at the courthouse intersects with anti-vigilante forces. Silvera also had the opportunity to co-star with Krysten Ritter, who plays Jessica Jones, and Camila Rodriguez, who plays The White Tiger. “I didn’t get to work with her until the season. So she was in the hallway scene with Matt and then with Camila, who plays the white tiger. She’s amazing. She’s short, but the way she enters the scene is powerful.”
Despite the action, the storytelling is always front and center, reflecting how each character’s moments are handled. “Matt and Jessica end up catching reporters on the way, and they try to protect the bystanders while trying to stop Fisk. Then Jessica Jones appears. Her powers finally come back to her fully. As the scene progresses, she gradually regains her powers. Importantly, we see her grab someone’s arm and pick her up, and we see Fisk do that in a very human way, and we see the juxtaposition of their respective character traits and powers, but also the contradictions of the emotional moments that they’re going through.”
Silvera, who has worked with Cox and D’Onofrio since 2014, knows how far he can push them. However, this was his first collaboration with Ritter. “I shot a get-to-know-you sequence with her earlier, and I could see how much she wanted to do it, how much she wanted to be involved,” he added, “That being said, once we design the action, we find that they’re doing 90 to 95 percent of the action.”
And if the risk is too great for the actor, a stuntman steps in. “We have great stuntmen,” he says.
