The Cast of ‘Moon Knight’ Talks About the World Finally Meeting Marc Spector and Steven Grant

Moon Knight will be the first time the Marvel Cinematic Universe gets to meet Marc Spector and Steven Grant. A character that explores mental health with a connection to ancient Egypt, the titular Moon Knight’s show has a lot of territory to cover, and it has to do so delicately, and while I have only seen the first four episodes of the series made available to the press, I do think that it’s going to give Marvel fans a lot to think about in a way they haven’t before.

But I also spoke to the cast, at a press conference, about the show and the excitement they have for audiences to finally get to see the series. Moderator Devan Coggan from Entertainment Weekly relayed reporters’ questions to the cast and asked how they felt about audiences finally getting to meet Marc Spector and Steven Grant.

Director Mohamed Diab talked about his journey and what he learned from the titular character. “I wanna tell you, the way I identify with the character is the idea—at the end what we learned, I would call myself ignorant about DID because all the information we know is from the movies,” he said. “It’s a bit shallow.  I’m gonna call myself that. But what I learned through the journey of doing the show is that the character need to live with themselves, the identities. And I felt that, I identified with that by the way each of us, the persona is the mask that we’re putting. I’m right now putting a mask to hide my desires, to hide everything—the other real character in me. And I think what I’m learning—what I learned from Marc and Steven is I need to be the same. I need to be one person. And I think this is the struggle that all of us through the journey of living are trying to achieve.”

For star Oscar Isaac, he seconded what Diab said and went on to talk about exploring that trauma and what what it means for the characters in Moon Knight. “Yeah, very well said. And I think that is the thrust of it, you know? That that in itself is its own superpower to be able to live through abuse or trauma and survive it and then come to terms with that, as opposed to push it all away. And to see that journey happen, I think that’s a really powerful thing.”

Mental health, Marc Spector, and Steven Grant

The character of Moon Knight is an alter for Marc Spector, a man who has dissociative identity disorder and is also the avatar for the Moon God Khonshu. With Khonshu’s healing powers and suit, Marc can do his bidding, but he also has an alter known as Steven Grant (who we meet first in the show and in the trailers), and the two have to navigate life and their powers together.

The show is not only pushing boundaries in terms of subject matter for Marvel and what we’ve seen out of the MCU so far, but it is also pushing us to think more about mental health and how it is portrayed onscreen. So, hopefully, audiences will learn something from the show and do their own research into DID when talking about Marc Spector and Moon Knight.

Moon Knight premieres on Disney+ on March 30 and is a completely new entry into our onscreen superheroes, and I can’t wait!

(featured image: MARZ VFX/Marvel Entertainment)