Let's talk MODOK: How Corey Stoll returned as a giant floating head in Quantumania

Warning: This story contains spoilers for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

Eight years ago, Corey Stoll starred in the original Ant-Man, facing off against Paul Rudd's microscopic hero. Now, the actor is making his surprise return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe — in a very, very different-looking role.

Stoll appears in the sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, reprising his role as the villainous Darren Cross. This time, however, Darren is no longer the suave businessman we met in the first film. It turns out that he survived his apparent death in the original Ant-Man, and his uncontrollable shrinking left him grotesquely deformed and stranded in the Quantum Realm. He's spent the last few years refashioning himself as MODOK, a self-imposed nickname that stands for Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing.

Also, he's now a giant levitating head with tiny baby limbs.

It's the goofiest part of an already goofy movie, and it marks the big-screen debut of one of Marvel comics' most bizarre villains. Quantumania reimagines MODOK's backstory for the MCU, transforming him from a doomed AIM scientist to a former villain hellbent on revenge. Director Peyton Reed tells EW that he's long been a fan of the "weird and grotesque" MODOK from the comics, and he had long hoped to find a place for him in Quantumania. As he and writer Jeff Loveness started outlining the film, they realized they needed to reintroduce a character from Scott Lang's past, so that Kang (Jonathan Majors) could have some prior knowledge of the Lang family. The answer turned out to be merging Darren and MODOK.

"I remember Corey being bummed out that he seemingly died in the first movie," Reed tells EW. "The thing you may not know about Corey Stoll is that he's a comics nerd. So, when I pitched him the idea, he started giggling on the other end of the phone. It was like music to my ears."

Here, Stoll, 46, opens up about his unexpected return — and the challenges of playing a literal talking head.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Take me back to when you first got the call from Marvel about coming back. What was that conversation like?

COREY STOLL: It came out of nowhere. I got a call that they wanted to talk, and it was all top secret. I had like a week to try to figure it out, like: How are they going to bring me back? Am I in the Quantum Realm? Is this some sort of multiverse thing? Am I going to be the new Captain America? What is happening! [Laughs] I had gone through every permutation that I could think of — but I had not thought that I'd be playing MODOK.

Peyton got on the phone, and we chatted about all the things in our lives that have changed in the ensuing years. Then, he said, "Have you heard of this character MODOK?" I was like, "The guy with the giant head? Um, yeah?" He said they hadn't written a script yet, but they had the idea, and they wanted to make sure that I was onboard before they wrote it. And of course, how could I not?

I'd spent a week dreaming of all the different roles that I could be playing, and that was not on my radar. But suddenly, it seemed like that's the only thing I could be playing. [Laughs] It seemed so perfect.

Walk me through the actual process of playing a levitating head. Was it motion-capture? Were you on set every day, or did you record separately?

I was originally supposed to be there for the whole shoot, but the pandemic pushed the schedule. I was only available for a very short time, so I came for like two days right before principal photography started. The whole cast was there, and Peyton and Jeff [Loveness], the writer, were there in the room. I had the dots on my face, and I was in front of the performance-capture camera. We had scripts in front of us if we needed them. So, we just started on the first scene and worked our way through. It felt like this awesome hybrid between theater and film. It was like we were rehearsing, and we were creating this new character together.

We did that for a couple of days, and then I came back, like, a year later and did everything again in different ways. That way they could capture my arms and legs. It was kind of a dream process. I actually fell in love with it. I have been a big fan of Andy Serkis' work, and I can see why he keeps going back to it. It taps into a sort of childlike, clownish way of working. It gives you license to take risks that you might not if you were just yourself, instead of some monster or crazy weird creature.

How did you react when you got to see the final version of yourself as a floating head?

You know, I'm the last person that you should ask. [Laughs] Seeing one's own face distorted and superimposed onto a flying wheelchair thirty feet high is an odd experience, let's put it that way. It's like how everybody has that experience of hearing your voice on a recorder or photographed from an unfamiliar angle. But this is that to the maximum.

But it's incredibly gratifying to hear the reaction of the audience, to hear the laughs and even some cheers. I was not expecting anybody to be cheering for MODOK.

I don't know if you've been online, but there are all these people who are obsessed with how weird and grotesque MODOK looks.

I'm not online. I'm very offline. [Laughs] But I was able to sit in the theater with real living people and hear that. It's bizarrely satisfying, and it's a culmination of this arc that started with the first movie.

Take me back to when you were working on the first Ant-Man almost eight or nine years ago. Did you have any sense then that they might ask you back someday, almost a decade later?

No! I mean, I think I had hopes. While we were filming, the script kept changing. Like, do I get arrested? Do I die? Do I sort of die? I was trying not to be too attached to it, but I was like, "This is really fun. I would love to be playing this part [again]." So, I felt so lucky to be able to come back.

With these movies, you know, obviously a lot of filmmakers have very strong opinions. Scorsese and other people have said things. But I grew up loving comic books and loving this bold, funny way of telling stories with these crazy characters. In a lot of ways, that was my introduction to storytelling before I got to theater and film. So I really love it. I do a lot of work where you can find yourself taking yourself very seriously, and I really relish being able to work in a way where that's impossible. There's no way you can say these lines and be this giant floating head and take yourself seriously.

As a comic book reader, how familiar were you with MODOK before this?

I don't know if I had ready many actual comic books with him. If I had, it had been decades ago. But I certainly knew who he was. Once you see an image of MODOK, and you see his name and what it stands for, you don't forget him. [Laughs] He's unique. He's almost like the apotheosis of bonkers '60s comic books. So, I was very excited to be able to go there.

It feels like this movie gives MODOK a pretty definitive finale — but you're proof that an on-screen "death" isn't always the end. Do you think we've seen the last of MODOK?

Well, I have no inside knowledge on that. But anything is possible.

You never know. You might get another call seven or eight years from now, saying, "Hey, we want you back — again."

Exactly!

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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