Ben Kingsley never expected Trevor Slattery to endure — let alone to someday star in his own Marvel Television series.
The Academy Award winner first joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe with 2013’s Iron Man 3, starring as the down-on-his-luck actor Trevor (who poses as the terrorist leader known as the Mandarin). Kingsley later reprised the role in the 2014 Marvel One-Shot All Hail the King and the 2021 film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Now, Trevor is stepping back into the spotlight, this time headlining the new Marvel Television series Wonder Man (premiering January 27 on Disney+).
“There are not many beloved characters one can have an opportunity of revisiting so many times,” Kingsley tells Marvel.com. “Trevor Slattery now has his own franchise, which is very bizarre! I don’t think he would have ever believed that as a struggling actor on stage in Liverpool!”
Created by Andrew Guest and Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton, Wonder Man follows Trevor as he returns to Hollywood and strikes up an unlikely friendship with Simon Williams, an aspiring actor played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. Together, the two thespians find themselves bonding over their shared love of the craft, as they both pursue life-changing roles in a remake of the 1980s movie Wonder Man.
The show’s emotional heart is the odd-couple relationship between Simon and Trevor: Both are at wildly different points in their careers, as Simon is eager to land his big break and Trevor wonders whether his glory days have already passed him by. But there’s a genuine warmth to their friendship, something that Kingsley says has always been a part of Trevor’s DNA.
“Trevor is, at his heart, a kind person,” Kingsley explains. “In the biblical sense, he has fallen amongst thieves, but he has made an attempt to restore himself and also made a concerted effort to be the actor his mother always dreamed he would become. There is a lasting bond between Trevor and his late mother, and it is that ambition that drives him to justify himself in her eyes, even though she may be in heaven.”
