Please welcome Mike Colter!
(cheers and applause)
Oh.
-Welcome. -Thank you.
I am so excited to see season two of Luke Cage.
I remember when Luke Cage first came out on Netflix,
-it broke Netflix. -It-it did.
We-we broke the net... we broke Netflix,
we broke the Internet, we did it all.
You missed out on the conversations, though,
-'cause you weren't online at the time, right? -Mm-hmm.
-I was not on social media. -Right.
So I was sort of in the dark on everything.
It was... It's a new day for me now.
Now I'm in social media.
I get to see all the stuff you guys are sending,
you know, all the animal things, and...
Isn't wonderful to just tap into the stream of hatred
-just, like, anytime? -Oh!
-It's so yummy. It's so yummy. -Yeah.
-It's... it's amazing. -That's what I love about Twitter.
Every day I go like, "I feel good about myself.
"I wonder if anyone hates me. There it is.
Yeah, yeah, there it is. There it is."
But it's also... You also have a lot of fans,
and that's what's been great about you going online,
social media-- you've connected with people.
-You've found a space where you share your voice. -Yeah.
Which I find, in many ways, is similar to Luke Cage.
What would you say? If you look at Luke Cage,
-the character and yourself... -Mm-hmm.
...where do you find the most similarities?
Well, not in social media, because
-he does not do social media. -Right.
Um, uh, I would say
he's a version of me that I would like to be.
-You know? -Right. In what way?
He's just... His moral compass is stronger than mine.
-Wow. Okay. -Yeah, I'm not gonna lie. I mean, he's...
There are things that he doesn't do, I would do.
I'll be honest with you. I would do. I would.
I totally would. I have no problem telling you
that if I had those powers, I would do very, very bad things.
(laughter)
So... just... just...
(applause and cheering)
Just know that.
Luke Cage is an interesting superhero for me
because, like, he lives and operates in Harlem.
Like, I like that vibe where he's just like,
"Yeah, downtown? I don't do downtown."
-No, no, no. -He's like, "Call Spider-Man.
-That's not my problem." -That's not my thing.
"I fix Harlem." Is that what makes Luke Cage special
is that, like, he really is of the world that he is from?
Yeah, but you know, like...
He... Like you say, 110. I don't think he goes below 110th.
-I don't think he goes above 150. -No.
Um.... and-and I think financially,
it probably works for him, 'cause, you know, the subway--
it gets expensive, you know? Gets expensive.
He does haven't a job.
That's why he doesn't go below 110.
It's just, he can't afford the tolls. He's just...
-Oh, man. -He's stuck. He's stuck.
Right. And that's a different world.
You've got... you've got the superhero.
Um, you've got Luke Cage, who is bulletproof,
but what I really love about the character is
that he's not... he's not bulletproof on the inside.
-You know? -No, no.
You've done a great job of showing off this person
who's, like, rock hard, but a softy on the inside.
Do you enjoy playing that kind of character?
'Cause you... you've got that persona as a person.
-Yeah, I think so. -The voice, the everything, you know?
I think so for sure. I mean, the thing about characters like that
is, like, what we do. and what the movies don't do,
we... we're sort of looking at the character
and trying to explore the character in a longer form.
-Right. -We trying to...
'Cause, listen, let's be honest. We don't have the budget
to do what they do on an Infinity War.
-We just don't. -Right.
-We can't blow up buildings, you know? -Right, right, right.
We can't... we can't bring in spaceships.
You can't... you can't make half the people disappear.
No, we can't do that. We don't...
You can... You got to ask them to move.
-"Can half of you go that...?" -"Just half of you."
"Half of you go that way. Go that way.
"We don't have the money for the glove.
Just go that way. Just stand on that side!"
It's expensive, very expensive.
Yeah, but that... that's what's great.
He's an organic character, he's different.
And season two, I've heard, is gonna be a lot darker.
What-what does that mean?
Where are we going with Luke Cage now?
Well, it's odd. So, talking about social media and the path
that Luke is on-- he's sort of trying to feel out
what it's like to be a superhero in this modern era
with social media, the advent of that,
the ever-watching eye. Everyone has a camera phone.
So dealing with that-- people coming up to you,
asking you for things, and expecting you to know things.
-Right. -You know? That's the thing about the leadership
and the parallels that we're dealing with
right now in society.
To be leader, you know, people expect you to know things.
But everybody in leadership doesn't necessarily know
-what they're doing. -Right, right, right.
So Luke Cage is sort of doing that right now.
He's sort of learning on the fly, and he's making mistakes.
-He's making mistakes. -So he could be president.
He could be president.
-(laughter, applause) -I like that.
You see the correlation.
Thank you so much for being on the show.
Season two of Marvel's Luke Cage
will be available on Netflix June 22.
Mike Colter, everybody.