Inhumans: Vin Diesel Teases He's Playing Black Bolt (Again)

Can he really do silent movies?

By Simon Gallagher /

If you're a fan of Vin Diesel and follow him on Facebook, you'll know that his approach to movie announcements tends to be about as subtle as a multi-movie franchise about driving really fast. The Fast & Furious and Guardians Of The Galaxy star has now teased (again) that he might be under consideration to play Black Bolt in Marvel's so far curiously ignored Inhumans movie, released in 2019. In conversation with IGN, the star followed up on his teasing to io9 that's he's about to play a second Marvel character, by offering a silent audition of how he would play the leader of the Inhumans who can't speak because his voice is his weapon. He followed that up with a mockney accent (proving nobody should ever cast him as an Englishman): "If I said one word, I would level all of London". More interestingly, the actor spoke more at length about the chance to play another character for Marvel, again suggesting that he's at least spoken to Kevin Feige about it:
"It would be... put it this way, when Kevin Feige started talking to me about... who would ever think? A voice for one thing and presence for another would be pretty genius €“ it'd be pretty genius. Whenever my father sends me an email, at the end of it he says 'stay human' €“ and it's cool and beautiful, but what is he really trying to say. Is he trying to say I've been affected by Terrigen Mist? Does he want to cocoon me again?"
Clearly he's been doing at least a bit of homework into Inhumans lore, or he wouldn't know about Terrigen Mist and the importance of cocoons. Would he actually make a good Black Bolt? He certainly has the right sort of look (in that he's huge and pretty scary looking), but there's a lot to be said about the power of his ridiculously deep voice to his performances: it was after all the reason he was so good as Groot, despite having pretty much nothing to do. So whether he has the ability to act silently well enough to sell a movie remains to be seen. Despite rumours that it was about to be cancelled over TV politics, The Inhumans is still scheduled to be released in 2019.