Blowing ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them. That's bull spend. And marketers are calling it out in... Dashboard confessions. I remember telling my boss it'll be good for the brand when leads were slow. Yeah, it wasn't. Cut the bull spend. LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title and more. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend £200 on your first campaign and get a £200 credit. Go to linkedin.com slash lead. Terms and conditions apply. Today on the official Marvel podcast, Vincent D'Onofrio and Charlie Cox discuss their work on season two of Marvel Television's Daredevil Born Again. Matt is so disillusioned and so beaten down after season one. He's lost the confidence in his own decision-making process, and so he's relying so heavily on Karen. It's really fun to see the hero that vulnerable and that reliant. And we'll hear from the Bowery Boys podcast co-host Greg Young on the history of New York City's most notorious political criminals and how Kingpin compares. We used to have trains that were above ground. Those were run by corruption during this period. It was so pervasive, you couldn't imagine how the city would run without it. Plus, Wilson Fisk's most unforgettable moments. I'm Victoria Ying. I'm Langston Belton. And this is the official Marvel podcast. Marvel Television's Daredevil Born Again Season 2 is in full swing with the devil of Hell's Kitchen and Kingpin at war. There are twists and turns around every corner. I'm so ready for this showdown, Victoria. What about you? Same. I am so excited to see the return of some familiar faces. Who are you most excited for? Everybody. I mean, all the familiar faces. But really, I'm looking forward to seeing that culmination of this war between Daredevil and Kingpin Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio. We actually got a chance to hear from Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio on what they're most excited for fans to see in season two. Dario and Senna, our producer, amazing producer, pitched a big bombshell to both of us. And I remember thinking and saying, okay, that's big. and I trust you guys. It's very hard to come back from that. So, but I'm all for telling big, bold stories and putting up, you know, there's a great Irish expression called throw your hat over the wall, which is the idea that if you throw your hat over a wall, you have to go and get it. You have to find a way, but throw it and then figure out how you're going to solve the problem. And I like that idea, that concept of storytelling, you know, throw your hat over the wall and it's a couple of those. Write your way out of it. I mean, that was, I don't think I've, I still have gotten over that. And I just, it was one, it was exactly what you said. It was like, I had to pause and just make sure that everybody really wanted to do that. You know, I couldn't believe it. And then that just stayed with me for the whole shoot. So how has Matt Murdock changed since season one? According to Charlie, Karen Page, played by Debra Ann Wohl, plays a big part in rebuilding his confidence. Matt is so disillusioned and so beaten down after season one that his confidence is on the floor. And whereas in the past, the one thing that Matt's always been really good at is his decision making. He's always been very clear minded about what happens next. This is what we do next. And he kind of dictates that. And others have to fall in line. He's quite bullheaded about that. In this season, he's completely lost the ability to make decisions. He's lost the confidence in his own decision making process. And so he's relying so heavily on Karen. And that's a really, I think that's quite new. It's different. It's really fun to see the hero that vulnerable and that reliant on the woman that he loves. It's also Karen Page is more badass than we've ever seen her ever. And that's one of the coolest things about this season. And it's fun to be almost like he executes her orders. And they turn out to be, at first at least, they turn out to be a really good team. And they dance together. Season two features the return of New York's prickliest private eye, Jessica Jones, and the introduction of the shady Mr. Charles. Vincent and Charlie couldn't be more excited to act with new scene partners, Kristen Ritter and Matthew Lillard. I mean, the overall thing is he's just annoying like everybody else to him on this, all the other characters that want to go up against him he finds really annoying. But Lillard's performance is great. You know, I keep thinking about the first scene when we were shooting the second season that he was in where he comes and he sits with Vanessa and I in the Gracie Mansion. And, you know, the way Lillard plays it, it's something you've never seen before. It's something that Vanessa and I are there with him at the table. And our reaction to him and what we say back to him is a brand new tone for them. They've never really had to deal with a freak like him. And that's exciting. And that's because of Matthew. That part could have been played a completely different way. Matthew just landed it so well throughout the whole season. It's really hard to do something like that. in a show like ours. To come in cold like that and create a character. It'd be very easy for it to be kind of like, feel like it's in a completely different show of a world. But to get that balance right is really tricky. Chris and Marissa does the same thing. She manages to do that thing where she brings the character she built in the show that she was in authentically into our show without losing any of the kind of tone or the stakes. But also brings the lovely humor and levity and like kind of snarkiness, which is so delicious. I really had to shake off my dislike for Mr. Charles. Like it bled into my, the way I felt about Matthew at the time. I love the guy that he's awesome. And I see him all the time. But during that season, I was not happy with Lillard at all because of his portrayal of Mr. Charles. I only realized that after. It's amazing. And, you know, to go off what he was saying about Kristen, and Kristen's just an incredible energy. She's got a really disciplined way of being on set and being prepared. And then she's open to ideas and ready to discuss anything anybody wants. She has a great demeanor. She's lovely as a person in real life. Vincent and Charlie are also grateful to work with such a fantastic supporting cast. We're so lucky to have the cast that we have. And then we have our regular supporting cast members that shine so bright in the second season. Margarita, her Heather Glenn. And then we have Michael Gandolfini. Michael's performance is amazing. Artie. Artie's performance is amazing. And I yell at, you know, just so scary. More than ever this season, the supporting characters really dark really fleshed out their storylines And then Lily Taylor came in and played the governor That so cool I mean she amazing in it It like Lily has played my girlfriend my daughter and my governor Wow Lily Taylor That is a very unique resume. Daredevil Born Again Season 2 is now streaming only on Disney+. Oh, that was such a great interview with Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio. I know, right? I love hearing them talk about their character journeys as Daredevil and Kingpin. Listeners, if you want even more Daredevil Born Again in your life, we have an exciting announcement. Yes, and here's Daredevil himself sharing the news. Matt Murdock, take it away. Hi, everyone. I'm Charlie Cox. The Daredevil Born Again official podcast is now streaming Tuesdays and stream season two of Marvel Television's Daredevil Born Again on Disney+. Oh, so exciting. You can watch and listen to the Daredevil Born Again official podcast on a weekly basis. The cast and crew will be digging into season two, sharing behind the scenes stories and fun facts about the action, the drama, and the general awesomeness of Daredevil Born Again. Between the show and the podcast, that's double your Daredevil viewing. Watch it on Disney Plus or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Daredevil Born Again season two has arrived and we're excited for the return of one of Marvel's most notorious villains, Wilson Fisk. That is right. The Kingpin has had some truly unforgettable moments, and let's just say if you don't want to get locked in a dungeon in a basement, you don't want to get on his bad side. But Wilson Fisk can also be a deep thinker. You might not agree with his worldview, but he certainly has one. Please enjoy this compilation of the philosophy of Wilson Fisk. I've done things that I'm not proud of, Vanessa. I've hurt people, and I'm going to hurt more. It's impossible to avoid for what I'm trying to do. But I take no pleasure in it. In cruelty. But this city isn't a caterpillar. It doesn't spin a cocoon and wake up a butterfly. The city crumbles and fades. needs to die before it can be reborn. It's hard. It's hard to come to terms with a violent nature, hating the power it has over us. How quickly we turn into savages. Why am I still alive? Because plans change. Because if you want to survive, you adapt. Excessive methods work. Everyone warned me that prison would be an inhumane environment. It is. But I find it refreshing. The perfect microcosm of the animal world. When an animal wants something, when it needs something. Other things need to be stepped on. It's funny, isn't it? How even the best of men can be deceived by their true nature. What the hell does that mean? It means that I'm not the Samaritan. That I'm not the priest or the Levite. That I am the ill intent who set upon the traveler on a road that he should not have been on. In prison, there's only room for one kingpin. We get caught up in what we're doing. Who we think we are. The rule of law must prevail. Problems. Just opportunities that haven't presented themselves. I'm going to find you. And I'm going to make you pay for what you've done. No, you're not. Not that I don't admire what you're trying to do. To change the world. Nothing but desire in your own two hands. secure in the knowledge that you're doing the right thing. The only thing. That's something that I do understand. But we both can't have what we want. A dead hero is better than a live vigilante. I have the responsibility to protect this city from anyone who steps outside of the law. In business, there's always a tipping point in a negotiation. We are in that place with this city. It just needs a little push. And they'll come to us with open arms. Vanessa, you know, politics, it's a different type of problem solving. Most of it is new to me, but some things, they remain unchanged. Find what a person wants. wants and either withhold it or provide it and they'll do anything. Marvel's Daredevil and Marvel Television's Daredevil Born Again are streaming only on Disney+. Langston, who's the most well-known corrupt politician in New York City? Well, I gotta go with Kingpin. I mean, come on, right? In the Marvel Universe, that's true. But does anyone in the real world come to mind? Victoria, I think I'm going to leave this one to a professional. I spoke with the Bowery Boys podcast co-host Greg Young about the city's history of political corruption and its key figures. All right, I'm joined by Greg Young of the Bowery Boys. Thanks so much for chatting with us. Can you introduce yourself to our listeners and tell them what you do? Yes, I am Greg Young. I am the co-host of the Bowery Boys podcast. We talk about the history of New York City kind of through the bigger lens of American history. Nice. Well, I'm a Bronx-born resident, so I'll try to not just ask about the Bronx, because we've got a lot to talk about. We're talking about the world outside your window, as they say at Marvel. And Daredevil, born again season one, Wilson Fisk, aka the Kingpin, has become mayor of New York City, which is, you know, awesome for everyone involved. Extraordinary development, if you know the history of Kingpin. Yeah, and a well-run campaign, I gotta say, that's what's terrifying. It was way deep So he of course committed some various criminal acts including but not limited to murder blackmail smuggling kidnapping The list goes on So off the top of your head, does Wilson Fisk bring any real life New York City political criminals to mind? Maybe not criminals, people who went outside the law to achieve their own gains. Well, I'd actually like to say two. One of them is a criminal. One of them is not a criminal, but is super hated like one. The first one, I would say that there are a lot of elements of, well, we'll talk about Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall maybe a little bit later. But there's one man in particular that I find is parallel, and his name is Jimmy Walker. And he was mayor during the Jazz Age. He's often called like the king of the Jazz Age. And the parallels there is that he's very suave. Now, obviously, he doesn't look like, Kingpin is a massive man. Jimmy Walker was a very handsome, kind of slender man. but they both dress very well. And what Walker was able to achieve is that he was in New York at a time where great things were being developed, great things were being built, right? Like throughout the city, like the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building. There was great prosperity coming through New York at that time. And so he kind of coasted on that, and he was very telegenic, very well-dressed, very dapper, also went out everywhere. He used to go to Madison Square Garden and then go to all the speakeasies. He was very lax when it comes to his enforcement of prohibition laws. This was the height of prohibition. But at the same time, so he was putting on this public face that people really found appealing, while at the same time, he just seemed to have all this money to just do all this sorts of stuff with. And it's like, no one really questioned that at first. And so once 1929 came along and the Wall Street Crash, Black Monday came along and things got really bad in New York and in America in general, people began looking at sort of his spending habits and his life in general and being like, well, where's all this coming from? And it was basically kind of covering up a huge network of corruption that had really been going on in New York for over a century and would even would continue beyond him, involving just sort of like paybacks, like people would pay him to get like government contracts. I mean, he just was like, he didn't really care because like when he was in his highs high, you know, when he was glamorous, Jimmy Walker, Bo James is what they called him. He felt like he could get away with anything. But by the early thirties, like people kind of saw through him and, you know, he eventually had to resign. That is one person that is a, that is a criminal. The other person Robert Moses. Now, Robert, they actually worked together in early years. Robert Moses was younger. Robert Moses is not a criminal, but what he did throughout his career is basically became the most influential man in New York City of the 20th century, because he was able to maneuver through different politicians, collect power by collecting different jobs. He was a parks commissioner, then he was in charge of the highways, and he was in charge. He just kind of gathered power until he was able to kind of craft the city in his own image by the 40s and 50s by destroying neighborhoods, for instance, like the Cross Bronx Expressway, driving it through there. I also see that as a parallel because, of course, Kingpin is a developer or he's working with sort of nefarious figures in creating or like kind of developing properties himself in the show. So Robert Moses, like I said, he's not a criminal, but he often worked with people who had, you know, like a shadier background to get some of this stuff done. There's something very especially New York about that mixture, actually. Yeah. So you mentioned earlier Boss Tweed. And aside from already having a comic book like name, Boss Tweed. Yes. So just to back it up a little bit, in the – actually in the late 18th century, but early 19th century, as political parties began forming, within those parties there became known as the machines, political machines, which was basically like how do you start getting people elected for your parties, right? And so there was a political machine on the Democratic side called Tammany Hall. Now, Republicans, different parties had different machines, and they were multiple Democratic machines. And Tammany Hall was the most famous and infamous because of how it was able to kind of wield and use influence and push its candidates to be elected. So this man, Boss Tweed, his name is William Tweed, but he became known as a boss because of this interesting structure of Tammany Hall, which was essentially an organization that went right down to the root of the communities back then. And the big source of power for Tammany Hall was immigrants. So, like, especially in the early and mid-19th century, thousands and thousands of immigrants were moving to New York, Irish immigrants in particular, but Germans and from other groups, Italian eventually, Eastern European. and they would move into these neighborhoods that didn't have a lot of resources and the city was kind of ignoring them. What Tammany Hall would do and what the bosses of Tammany Hall would do is they would go to these communities and they would provide things for them. I mean, that's the kind of weird thing about this. It's like, it ends up being very corrupt, but they're providing things for communities of need. But like, there's a quid pro quo of like, we can get you some food, we can get you some better housing, We can get you this and that. We can get you some jobs. You got to vote for our people, right? So this is a network that goes up from the ground up up into like the higher echelons of this political machine. So Boss Tweed is notorious in the mid 19th century as being the one who really wields the most power. And really during like by the Civil War period, he's kind of running New York, even though like, I mean, he wasn't elected official at some point, but not a major one. But it's through the mayor, it's through the governor's office, it's through all these different positions, he is able to acquire power. And he represents the Tammany Hall machine, which is like, you scratch my back, I scratch yours type of thing. And it's often not for the good of the city overall. And Tammany Hall in particular in these Boss Tweed years what would happen well to use a great example a famous example there a courthouse behind the city hall today New York City Hall It called the Tweed Courthouse as its nickname But it was a building that was constructed during this Tweed period It cost so much money because of course it was like a fraction of money that needed to be for the actual building materials And then like all the rest of the money went to like bribes and like kickbacks and like hey if hey Mr You know construction firm do you want this job? Like you have to pay us a certain amount of money. And so it was just like layer after layer of layer of like false payments that went into this building, ballooning the price of everything. And this went on, this is the most famous example, but like the Brooklyn Bridge is another example of this. A lot of the elevated railroads that once went through New York City in the 19th century, we used to have trains that were above ground, literally heightened. Those were also run by corruption during this period. And it was so pervasive that it was almost like you couldn't imagine how the city would run without it. But eventually, these things would get so outrageous and so expensive and so clearly not really helping the city was just like lining the pockets of these particular men that a reform movement would eventually form. Now, that's basically like anyone else who's not a Tammany Hall. So sometimes that would be the other Democrats plus the Republicans, plus another party. So this is a cycle that happens in New York, actually, throughout the 19th century into the 20th century, where it's like things get so bad that a reform party is created. They eventually topple Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed and the bosses and all these people, and some of them go to jail. And then the reforms are in power for a while, but then for some reason or another, they're ineffective or they don't change with the times, and then Tammany Hall returns. It's almost like the plant's returning every spring, here comes Tammany Hall, although like over the decades, they are kind of reduced somewhat through like, you know, like state and federal type of laws and breakdowns. They would be around in some form well into the 20th century, this group, Tammany Hall. Right. Now let's switch from the criminal element to the heroic element, because of course, Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil, is a lawyer by day working within the law system and then mass vigilante by night punches criminals in the face. So, and he's, of course, often going up. And as we see in the show, going up against the kingpin. So who are some figures that maybe didn't put on costumes and leave criminals at the police station with notes on them, but real life figures who fought against that corruption in New York City? Well, let me actually mention, this one's kind of mob based, but I just want to mention him because he's a perfect example of like a, of an early 20th century superhero. And his name was Joseph Petrosino. And he was actually a cop. He was with the New York Police Department, but he was also Italian. And so during this period, there were a lot of Italians immigrating to New York City. There was a lot of mob-related activity. And so Petrosino was able to kind of infiltrate, get a lot of people arrested, and became actually kind of known for it. Then he was actually sent over to Italy to infiltrate the mob there and was murdered. so he today is kind of seen as like a model of like what it is to be a good civic citizen today there's a park in like the noho soho area kind of named for him so he's kind of a model in terms of like the everyday person like what can i do to help fight corruption and so the heroes in the story come in different shapes and sizes not necessarily with capes or in spandex but new York City, it goes through this cycle. Like I said, there's a lot of reform and let's change things and make everyone's lives better. And then 10 years later, Tammany takes over. And again, Tammany and the Democrats in this particular case are the worst offenders, the most notorious, mostly because of Boss Tweed's legacy. But then this happens in different configurations and different political powers throughout American history. Oh, man. Well, Greg, I want to talk about this all day, but now I'm just going to go walk around the Bronx and think about all of the crazy things that happened up here. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Robert Moses drove the expressway through the Bronx. I mean, like, yeah, I mean, there's like, you see the evidence of all this history living with us still today. Greg, it was so great speaking with you today. Thank you so much again for joining us. Thank you. It's been great to be here. It's hard to believe that the first X-Men comic was released over 60 years ago. Whether you're new to the super group of mutants or looking for a new read, Marvel Comics VP and executive editor Tom Brevoort has you covered. We spoke to him about his favorite all-time Marvel comic, and he's quite passionate about this 1982 release. I think in terms of, you know, like one book that sums up the X-Men, I don't think you can really do better than the Chris Claremont, Brent Anderson graphic novel God Loves Man Kills. Again, it's one of those books that's kind of here's everything you need to know about the X-Men and all their major characters in one story. It's now 30, 35, 40 years old. So I keep staring at it and going, I'd like to do something like this in a modern parliance. It's like, I want to find what the modern day equivalent to this is and do a project like that. But until I get there, God Loves is still the champ when it comes to one stop shopping for all your X-Men experiential needs. If you want to check it out, X-Men God Loves Man Kills is available on Marvel Unlimited. Next week on the official Marvel podcast, we're going behind the scenes of Daredevil Born Again Season 2 with Daredevil Born Again directors of photography, Hilary Spera and Jeffrey Waldron. It was a great introduction to, you know, Daredevil season two, where it just like kept being some of the biggest, most explosive, interesting, fun, visual worlds. But yeah, it was definitely a moment of like, oh, wow, what am I getting into here? Until then, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you listen. This episode of the Efficient Marvel Podcast was hosted by Victoria Ying and me, Langston Belton. Our producers are Jasmine Estrada and Anita Flores. Brad Barton is our Senior Manager of Audio Production and Development. And our Production Manager is Emily Godfrey. Mixed by Justin Harris. Our theme music is by Ida Akbal. Executive produced by Larissa Rosen. Thank you so much for listening and take care.
