Colman Domingo on Former Kang Casting Rumors: ‘I Want a Role to Be Mine’

Jonathan Majors debuted in the MCU as Victor Timely back in 2021, and then as Kang the Conqueror in ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ in 2023 in what was the first movie of Phase 5, also known as the beginning of the Multiverse Saga.

‘Quantumania’ wasn’t exactly successful, adding insult to injury, soon after the release of the blockbuster movie, the actor behind the villain who was supposed to mark the next few phases of the MCU was arrested and ultimately found guilty of assault charges.

At the time, rumors were confident that Kang was merely going to be recast, with his story set to continue in the MCU, but several months later it was announced that the character was to be written out of the MCU completely, replaced by Doctor Doom played by Robert Downey Jr.

One of the actors heavily rumored to replace Majors as Kang was Colman Domingo. Domingo even hinted in the past that his team may have had conversations regarding “some role” with Marvel Studios saying:

You know, listen. My team has had conversations with Marvel about some aspect of the MCU for years. Do I know this to be true or not? I actually don’t know. I feel like my team doesn’t bring me something unless it’s real. So I don’t know. I could be in conversation, but I’m not sure. I would welcome a conversation around it.

Now Domingo was a guest on Joshua Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast and Horowitz stated that the actor should get into the MCU. Domingo commented that he is now – referencing the fact that he voiced Norman Osborn in ‘Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. (He isn’t though, as the show is separate from the MCU).

Domingo admitted that he enjoys voicing Norman, an iconic Marvel villain but it would be cool if he could be in live-action.

I would love to tear that up on the big screen, but I’m having a great time actually. I love the animation, I love the idea of playing Norman Osborn and then you’ll see his evolution to the Green Goblin in coming seasons which will be very cool.

Horowitz then asked about the numerous rumors regarding him and Kang, and whether he initiated anything with his team.

He admitted that after seeing the speculation spread online, he became curious and even asked his team if any discussions were happening behind the scenes. However, they assured him that no such talks had taken place—at least not that they were aware of.

Domingo did confirm that he had a meeting with Marvel executives to discuss potential roles, but ultimately, he expressed that replacing someone didn’t feel right to him. He emphasized that he prefers to take on roles that are uniquely his, rather than stepping into someone else’s shoes.

Listen after a while when it was constantly in the press, and on places like you know, Twitter, I was like “wait a minute is this true, am I being talked about?” I literally called my team and said are you guys having conversations that I don’t know anything about? And they are like “No, I don’t know.” And then I was like “are you guys being cagey or what?”

And they weren’t, I don’t think so. But I think there had been conversations about me, coming to Marvel in some way so we did follow it up with a sitdown meeting with the heads of Marvel. So I did do that. And we talked openly about the landscape of Marvel or even like the Kang rumors.

I personally knew that, listen, I’m just all about energy and I want to do things that make sense and bring gentle energy but I feel that I want a role to be mine, whatever that role is, whatever I develop…Something didn’t feel right of me, like ‘Oh, I replace someone. I said no, I want to build something from the ground up that’s my own.” So I feel like that was never the conversation about my point of view. You know what I mean. I still don’t know if I was discussed. So I just wanna build something from ground up and there’s still talks.

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