Avengers: Infinity War's Idris Elba Will Miss Heimdall

Screen Rant

Avengers: Infinity War Actor is Going to Miss Playing [SPOILER]

By Thomas Bacon

Published May 5, 2018

One Avengers: Infinity War actor admits on social media that he will miss playing his character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Avengers: Infinity War.

Avengers: Infinity War actor Idris Elba has taken to social media to admit he's going to miss playing the part of Heimdall in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Heimdall has been an important supporting character in the MCU ever since 2011's Thor, having appeared in five movies total, including last year's Thor: Ragnarok. But now, the Asgardian's time seems to be up.

Heimdall's death in Avengers 3 was hardly a surprise. Ragnarok ended with Heimdall being one of a small number of Asgardian survivors, but the peoples' refugee ship was intercepted by the Sanctuary II - Thanos's vessel. With Infinity War clearly kicking off only moments later, viewers expected the Mad Titan to launch a killing spree, which is exactly what he did. Many Asgardians were killed by Thanos, including Heimdall.

And now that fans have had their time to mourn all those that died in Avengers: Infinity War, Idris Elba has admitted to his followers on Twitter that he will miss playing the part of Heimdall in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Take a look:

Heimdall's death scene was an appropriate one. He was Asgard's watchman, and his responsibility had always been to warn Asgard of any and all imminent threats. With the Asgardians slaughtered, Heimdall sacrificed himself to send the Hulk to Earth to warn humanity that Thanos was coming. It was a last act of heroism, one for which Heimdall paid with his life.

Elba's comment is an interesting one, though, given he's had a fairly rocky relationship with the MCU. He infamous referred to the Thor: The Dark World reshoots as torture, giving a sense of how much he despised them. Fortunately for Elba, this experience was transformed by Ragnarok's Taika Waititi, and as a result, Elba seems to have grown fond of playing the part. He admitted: "The others weren’t fun. They're work. But on this one, Taika was great."

The reality is that an actor like Elba could easily have been so much more important to the future of the MCU. He's a tremendously skilled actor, but he was essentially playing a glorified background character. What's even worse is that Marvel never seemed to realize the star power they were dealing with, and they didn't increase the scale of his role. At one point Elba even voiced his interest in playing an MCU superhero, but that never came to pass - at least not in the way that he had hoped.

Now, Elba's time with the MCU has come to an end. Heimdall's story is done; it was brought to an abrupt close at the beginning of Avengers: Infinity War in one of the most powerful and disturbing scenes in the film. He's not the only Asgardian to be killed by Thanos, either. But unlike Loki, Heimdall has never had a reputation for resurrections.