British-born American actor Delroy Lindo has been cast in Marvel’s Blade reboot. He will be working alongside Oscar-winning actor Mahershala Ali, who is confirmed to be playing the title character.
Deadline reports that other than Ali, Lindo is the only other confirmed actor taking place in the project, though what his exact role will be is unclear. Ali’s casting was announced at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2019.
This upcoming project will be the first time the character Blade has appeared in a film since 2004’s disappointing Blade: Trinity. The character is a human-vampire hybrid due to his mother being bitten and killed by a vampire during childbirth, and he protects the human race as a vampire-slayer. He was famously portrayed by Wesley Snipes in three movies, Blade: Trinity being the last one. Ali, who won an Oscar in 2017 for Moonlight, had an uncredited voice cameo as Blade in the recently released Marvel film Eternals. The upcoming Blade film will be part of a future phase in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Lindo, age 69, is known for his frequent work with filmmaker Spike Lee. Such films include Clockers, Crooklyn, Malcolm X, and Da 5 Bloods which gave a resurgence to his career. He has also had major roles in Get Shorty and Gone in 60 Seconds. Recently he starred in Netflix’s The Harder They Fall as real-life figure Marshal Bass Reeves, the first black deputy U.S. Marshal west of the Mississippi. Given the serious historical nature of so much of his roles, one can only imagine what sort of role he will have in a comic book-based film But given Marvel’s history of touching on serious real-life issues, it would be no surprise of Lindo’s role is going to be just as serious as his previous work.
