During the fourth part of TMR’s press room coverage for Marvel’s Luke Cage, TMR and other outlets were invited interview the legendary Alfre Woodard and Mahershala Ali, who portray the series’ antagonists Mariah Dillard and Cornell ‘Cottonmouth’ Stokes respectively.
In the interviews, the actors discuss the series’ writing, their characters, the larger MCU and preparing for their roles.
In the comics, Cornell Cottonmouth was a powerful drug lord and crime boss whose drugs were used to frame Carl Lucas (aka Luke Cage). Mariah Dillard is Cottonmouth’s cousin and a local politician in Harlem desires a new change to the streets she grew up on. This a new direction for the character as ‘Black Mariah’ is gang leader of the New York based ‘Rat Pack’ that according to Marvel “uses a stolen ambulance to pick up the bodies of the recently deceased, and then stealing whatever valuables they had on their person.”
We’ll leave it at that for now. Watch as Alfre and Mahershala speak in the video below:
For more Marvel’s Luke Cage SDCC coverage, check out our other interviews with series star Mike Colter, Executive Producer / Showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker, Simone Missick, Frank Whaley, Theo Rossi and Marvel TV head Jeph Loeb.
When a sabotaged experiment gives him super strength and unbreakable skin, Luke Cage becomes a fugitive attempting to rebuild his life in Harlem and must soon confront his past and fight a battle for the heart of his city.
Marvel’s Luke Cage premieres September 30th on Netflix.