-Welcome, welcome, welcome. You look sharp.
Thanks for being here, buddy. -Thanks for having me, Jimmy.
Hello, everybody. [ Cheers and applause ]
-You know, I was noticing a lot of the projects
you're involved in involve space.
A lot of things like "Prometheus" -- space --
"Doctor Strange" -- space. -Space.
-Yeah. You did "The Martian."
-"The Martian," yes.
-Space. -Yes. Yeah.
-Are you typecast?
-Yeah, yeah, I guess I'm like the Colin Firth of sci-fi.
[ Laughter ]
-That's exactly right, yes. "Pride and Prejudice."
That's funny. -I flown a fare few spaceships.
So I think I've been barred now
because my insurance premium's gone up.
-Yeah, exactly. I have an older picture of you.
Here is 1994.
This is you in a stage production of "Star Trek."
-Yep. [ Laughter ]
-Not bad.
-There I am, my little live self.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
What do you remember about this?
-Yeah, we had a great time on that.
I was playing Sulu, and I think one of the things
what you're going to do when you're flying spaceships,
you just sort of look off into the middle distance
confused of where you're going.
[ Laughter ]
And there was one time they forgot the sound effects,
so I had to kind of improvise and, you know --
[ Whistles ] "Bridge to Captain Kirk.
There appears to be some Klingons on Uranus,"
or something like that. [ Laughter ]
-You did the whistle yourself? -The whistle, yes.
-It's an interesting story about how you got the role of Wong
in the first "Doctor Strange" movie.
You kind of manifested it.
-Well, yeah. Well, as you were saying, I was doing the film
"The Martian," with my good friend Chiwetel Ejiofor.
And you know, you're having lunch,
and "What are you up to next?"
He's doing "Doctor Strange."
You go on the Internet.
There's this character called Wong.
-Hello. -Hi. Hi!
[ Laughter ] Hey!
-Hi! Yes. -Yeah, my jaw drops.
I didn't have an agent at the time --
well, for the better part of eight years.
So I went to him the next day.
"We're going to do a petition called Wong for Wong."
[ Laughter ] "You sign it.
Cumberbatch signs it. That's it."
He's not having any of this. -Of course, yeah, yeah.
Wong for Wong, no.
-Yeah, so then that's out of the window.
Cut to a few months later, I'm filming in Budapest.
I get this mysterious e-mail with, "Hi, we would like you
to audition for the part of Lee."
So I was like, "Alright, yes." [ Light laughter ]
Went on tape, did some tweaks in Slovakia.
By the time I got to Malaysia,
I got the call from the amazing Sarah Finn.
"Congratulations, you're going to have a wonderful time."
I text my friend Chiwetel.
"I'm going to have to borrow your lawyer."
And he replied back, "Wong for Wong?"
[ Laughter ]
And I replied, "Wong is Wong."
-Yeah, that's right. Wong is Wong.
[ Cheers and applause ] You made it happen.
You made it work. -And I'm here.
-And you're here and you're great.
-Thank you. -When you were growing up,
you said you were a big Spider-Man fan.
-Yeah, massive.
-You got to be in "Spider-Man: No Way Home,"
one of the biggest movies ever.
[ Cheers and applause ]
But a lot of people don't know this.
You actually played Spider-Man once before yourself.
You were Spider-Man.
-Yeah, Spider-Wong. [ Laughter ]
-Where can we see you as Spider-Wong?
-Well, a long, long, long, long time ago, Sia,
the amazing singer that is Sia had called me up for her video
"Breathe Me,"
you know, and said like, "Come on, I want you to be in this."
You know, I was trying to say,
"Look, I'm trying to be a serious actor.
I don't know if I should be in music videos.
What do you want me to do?"
"You can either wear a rabbit costume or a Spider-Man outfit."
I went, "I'll be over in 15 minutes."
[ Laughter ]
So I got to my chance to play Spider-Man.
-This is kind of awesome right here. Here's you.
There's you as Spider-Man. [ Laughter ]
This one -- I probably should've showed this one.
-Oh, yeah, there I am in full costume.
So there we go. -Yeah, that's you right there.
Yes, you actually have played Spider-Man before.
-Yes, I have.
-But now fans are freaking out because they love you.
They want the MCU to be the WCU.
They want the Wong Cinematic Universe.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Make sure you got the U just right.
But fans do want you to have your own Disney+ series.
What do you think of that?
Do you have ideas for story lines?
-For all of those feelings in the 312 Wong-tourage fans.
-Wong-tourage?
-Yeah, that's what I affectionately call them now.
-The Wong-tourage. I love that. That's going to catch on.
-We have to give them what they want, clearly.
-There's 312 people demanding this.
-Don't you think? [ Cheers and applause ]
I can't hear you!
[ Cheers and applause intensify ]
-Wow! -Oh, wow.
-People are demanding it.
-Showing you some of my pantomime skills there.
-Yeah, you're actually very talented, yeah.
But I think that would be great.
I mean, would you be up for that?
-I'd love it. I'd love it. -You would?
Yeah, they do good work over at Disney+.
There's got to be backstories and stuff that we don't know.
-Yeah, you know, what happens to Wong during the infinity war.
You know, there's a five-year period we can start with.
-What do you think happened?
-Well, he took a deep breath
'cause it was really full-on out there, wasn't it?
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-He could've done anything. -Yeah, yeah.
You know, training his students at Kamar-Taj maybe.
-Oh, yeah. I'd love to know that --
what happens at Kamar-Taj, what happens at --
Yeah, a day in the life. -Yeah.
-I would love to see.
Yeah, maybe there can be a scientist.
-You should be in it. [ Laughter ]
-That's your idea. I mean, if the people want it.
-I think Jimmy should be in it. [ Cheers and applause ]
Come on, Jimmy, give me some action.
Give me some portals.
Whoa, whoa, whoa!
-Yeah, right? You feel that?
-Health and Safety will patch that up.
[ Laughter ]
-Let's talk "Doctor Strange."
This is a giant, giant, giant movie.
Congrats. -Thank you.
-And I would recommend seeing it in IMAX too
if you can do it because it is a big, big universe.
Multiverse, really. And it really is. It pays off.
There's probably -- yeah, 100 different places you go to.
-Yeah. -It's just a giant world.
I don't know. It's so amazing to me.
I go, "What's real and how do you act in this?"
-Well, Charles Wood is amazing at building the set design.
And obviously we have the green screen
that takes us to far-reaching places.
But, you know, massive credit to the VFX team.
-They do a great job. What can we say?
What happens in this movie?
-A lot happens.
I mean, from those that have seen "Wandavision"
and "No Way Home," obviously the spell that I told him
not to cast has been cast.
The cracks in the parallel realities are open.
All sorts of characters are coming out,
and all roads lead to our movie.
-Yeah, congratulations. I want to show everyone a clip.
Here's Benedict Wong in
"Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness."
Take a look at this.
-Spider-Man -- he has the powers of a spider.
-Hence the name. -Gross.
Does he look like a spider? -No, no, more like a man.
-Climbs walls. Shoots webs. -Yeah, bingo.
-Out of his butt? -No.
-Ew. -Maybe, I don't know.
Honestly, I hope not. -Super weird.
-You're going to get a stomach ache.
-I'm from another universe.
How do you know my stomach works the same as yours?
-I don't.
I don't even know if you're from another universe,
which is why I'm still sitting here
waiting for you to enlighten us.
-[ Chuckles ] -Which means...?
[ Cheers and applause ] -Benedict Wong, everybody.
"Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness"
is in theaters and IMAX tomorrow.