Thanos – A CGI villain who makes us ‘think’ and ‘feel’

MUMBAI: Thanos is hands down one of the best comic book villains of all time. Everything about him is very intimidating from his stature to his voice. However, to some extent he is very humane and someone with whom we could sympathize with. In the comic books, the character has this weird motivation which was dubbed as ‘Obsession with Death’. The directors of Avengers Endgame, Russo brothers thought that this motivation was not impactful, mainly because there were elements of too much fantasy in there and the character of Lady Death had yet to be introduced. Catch the Mad Titan go against the Avengers for one last time on Star Movies on 17^th May at 12 pm and 9 pm.

Actor Josh Brolin who portrayed the character, Thanos in Avengers Infinity War and Endgame, experimented a lot with the character to achieve the acclaimed depiction of the character on screen. In today’s time, CGI has gone on to become extremely realistic. Despite this, the actor had a very big challenge which was to portray an 8’3 tall formidable character with whom the audience could connect with sympathetically as well as fear!

Regarding the character, actor Josh Brolin stated “Earlier, we didn’t understand the nuances of the role. The Russo’s had the intentions and the relationship with Gamora, Nebula and all the other stuff but it wasn’t until we started experimenting that we realized that there was a character where we could invest and everyone could sympathize with. I think that’s the biggest thing.”

Fellow cast member Paul Rudd who portrayed Ant-Man in Avengers Endgame, stated “I think Thanos is a really complex and amazing antagonist. When I saw Infinity War, I was thinking that what he is saying has logic behind it. Sure! Maybe he is a psychopath but at his heart it is something you can sympathize with. I think Brolin does a great job at playing this powerful character. It’s a perfect casting. He just exhumes that strength and poise that Thanos possesses. When you got so many heroes fighting you got to be a formidable opponent which means you will be needing a formidable actor playing the character. Josh Brolin hit a home run with the character’s portrayal.”