Ahead of the release of the Avengers: Endgame, Joe Russo, of the Russo brothers, deconstructs Thanos, and shares his love for fan theories

“BRING… ME… THANOS!” screamed Thor, at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. If you screwed up your eyes and really concentrated, you may have heard a hundred thousand screams of rapture emerge from theatres across the world at the same time, including from, of course, the cinema-mad India. In fact, one such video — of Indian fans screaming themselves hoarse for the Thor appearance in Wakanda — went viral, and eventually ended up on the phone screens of the Russo brothers. “We got the chills watching that video,” says Joe Russo, whose first stop in his tour to promote Avengers: Endgame is India. “I decided to come to India first, because of that clip. Every time my brother and I would feel low, we would watch that video to get ourselves going. It’s incredibly gratifying to be able to reach out to fans across the globe, like this.” The other Russo, Anthony, couldn’t join him on the tour, as “work on the VFX is still ongoing.”

It’s futile to try to prise out any important details about Avengers: Endgame from him (as, in his words, “Thanos demands my silence”); so instead, I focus the conversation with Joe Russo on Thanos himself, the central character of Infinity War, who wiped out half the universe with a snap of his fingers (which has now come to be referred as ‘The Decimation’). Thanos is a fascinating villain, among the best we have got in recent times. He’s dogged in his pursuit of goal, and yet, unlike many of his ilk in fiction, isn’t devoid of emotion. “It’s hard when you are working with villains,” begins Joe Russo. “The standard response of the audience is to box the villain and say they can’t relate to his sociopathy.” The first step for the Russo brothers was then to look to make him vicious, yes, but more crucially, to make him relatable. “That’s why Infinity War is told through his eyes,” he reveals. “It also helps that despite his sociopathic tendencies, there are altruistic motivations attached to his goal. He has this monastic dedication to achieving it.” It was important for the Russo brothers to make the audience truly understand Thanos’ perspective, even if they vehemently disagreed with it. This explains why even the horror scene of Thanos committing filicide by killing Gamora, drew from us a range of emotions including, fascinatingly, empathy.

(Interview continued in the link below)

For the remainder of this interview, please visit https://www.cinemaexpress.com/stories/interviews/2019/apr/03/we-did-everything-to-make-thanos-relatable-joe-russo-10864.html