Disney+'s Hawkeye is gearing up for its final two episodes and they are promising to shake up the future of the MCU. The Christmas-themed series has seen Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) and Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) take on the Tracksuit Mafia including Kazi (Fra Fee) and their leader Maya Lopez aka Echo (Alqaua Cox). But she might be the only one pulling the strings and there are plenty of questions the series still need to answer.
Screen Rant spoke to Fee about the final two Hawkeye episodes, being a Marvel fan himself, and his hopes for his character's future.
Screen Rant: Tell me about joining the Marvel Universe because you tweeted, you're the first in line to see these movies when they come out. So how did that process go?
Fra Fee: Oh, God, you can only imagine how my head was feeling whenever I got the phone call. You know, you do these auditions sometimes for big things, and it just feels like such a drop in the ocean the chance of ever getting it. My agent called me on a Saturday morning, which is highly suspect because he's usually pottering about in the garden, so I knew something was up. When he told me, I was in a state of shock for several minutes. He had to call me back a few minutes after the first phone call to say, wkeye, darling." My mind was completely blown and it still is, to be honest.
I can't believe that we've done it and to watch it unfold in real-time with the fans, because I'm one of them. I'm still waiting to watch each episode, even though I have a good sense of what's about to happen. It's a real thrill. I feel like the luckiest fella in the world.
Did you know what you were auditioning for? I've talked to a few people that had no idea.
Fra Fee: No, not a clue. I was sent these sides. I got a sense of a character that had a sort of dual loyalty, I guess, to one thing, but also feel passion about another, but that was about it. I didn't know if he was on the scale of good or bad or anything.
So it wasn't until I did my final meeting with Rhys Thomas and Trinh Tran that they were able to give me a bit more of an idea. But even then, I still really wasn't fully clued up until we got to Atlanta, and we started to piece this thing together. That's never happened. That's very rare. Usually, you wouldn't even imagine taking a job if you didn't know exactly what it was that you're doing. But I think when Marvel comes a-calling, and it's like, "Yeah, I trust you guys. It's all good!"
Did you have that pinch-me moment where you step on set and see Hawkeye, Kate Bishop, everybody around you and you’re like, "Oh, this is real?"
Fra Fee: One of the first things we shot was the car chase scene, actually in episode three. I was sat with Aleks [Paunovic], who plays Ivan, next to me in the truck. And we've got Jeremy and Hailee running across with their bows and we're like, "What?! What's going on?" like, covering up our mics. That was definitely the first pinch-me moment. But believe me, there were plenty of them. There really were.
Do you have a favorite Kazi moment? And have we seen it yet?
Fra Fee: Have you seen it yet? I don't think you have. No, you haven't seen it yet.
There's a comic counterpart here. When you went into your deep dive, what was the most interesting thing that you read?
Fra Fee: I find a lot to be motivated by and a lot informed my take on the character, from reading the Fraction comics. I find [him to be a] really, really intriguing, brooding character. But what I love about how the MCU has taken these characters, and put them on screen, and having the allowance of time or sort of like six hours. We could have more fledged-out versions of them.
I think Kazi has a lot going on, and that will be revealed. He's not quite as simple as an inherently evil person. I think there's a reason why he has got to where he is and there are reasons why he is motivated by certain things. That's the interesting thing about what we get to do, is figure out why. I've loved that exploration.
He’s tied with Maya Lopez, who we know is getting a spin-off. Do you think there’s a larger plan for Kazi? Do you think we could see more from him?
Fra Fee: [crosses fingers] I would love to. I would love to explore this character for as long as I am around, genuinely. He's deeply, deeply intriguing and compelling, and mysterious. I don't even know the fully-fledged version of him. I did my job for the sake of this gig. It's up to someone else to see if there's more to explore. We'll have to wait and see.
We have two episodes left. If you could give us a little tease of what to expect, what would you say?
Fra Fee: I genuinely don't know where to begin. This is going to blow your socks off. The finale and by that I mean, episodes five and six, it's all been leading to this. This epic, epic ending, which in and of itself has huge ramifications for the rest of the MCU moving forward. Yeah, you won't be able to eat your Christmas dinner. You'll be far too excited.
We'll never be the same again.
Fra Fee: Yeah, you will have changed.
New episodes of Hawkeye premiere Wednesdays on Disney+.