Riri Williams’ quest to build something truly iconic is finally here. Ironheart soared to Disney+ to craft the genius teen’s origin story, taking fans to the MCU version of Chicago. The city is close to Riri’s heart as her hometown and it holds many things: painful memories, magical secrets, and the allure of temptation. We spoke to Ironheart executive producer Zoie Nagelhout about balancing Riri’s comic material with new ideas and the show’s thematic underpinnings.
Nerdist: Ironheart gave Riri a more formal MCU origin story that’s done in such a brilliant way. How did you go about striking the balance between bringing in elements of her main comic arc while also infusing her journey with new things to surprise audiences?
Zoie Nagelhout: That is always the fun first task! It is figuring out what about the comics is a must have and what are things that you might want to tweak or change or enhance in order to make it work for the screen. Luckily, the comics are really amazing and there aren’t a ton of them. But the runs that we did have, particularly Eve Ewing’s run, offered us a lot of character depth, a lot of fun concepts, including her interacting with magic.
And so I think there was a lot for us to just kind of pluck and enhance in collaboration with our amazing writers led by [head writer and creator] Chinaka Hodge. We really got to see what, especially to folks who maybe aren’t as steeped in the comics, although Chinaka was quite familiar, was standing out to them and what was exciting to them. You want it to feel like it works and can engage not only the fans, but also maybe non-fans. So that was very fun for us to go on that journey of plucking out what worked and maybe what needed to be adjusted.
For sure. I think the show does a great job of exploring how socioeconomic barriers can push anybody into the wrong direction. I’d love to hear more about why that felt like the right thematic underpinning for Riri’s journey?
Nagelhout: Yeah, you’re very spot on. I think that the biggest difference between Riri and Tony is the access that they had. Tony obviously grew up a billionaire and ended up using his brilliance for the most heroic reasons and had to realize that that was something at his fingertips. Riri on the other hand grew up scrap metaling and figuring out how to make what she found into something that she invented in her mind. And she learned from her stepdad who ran an auto shop. So it was a very different approach.
In a lot of ways, it kind of reminded us of Tony in the cave having to sort of scrap with what he had at his fingertips. But that is Riri’s everyday life… There are different difficult choices that she’s up against in order to achieve her ambitions. It puts her on a very different path, of course. So it was very exciting to explore that in tandem with the villain Parker Robbins, who is of similar struggles, but different methodology, different approach, and different power.
Ironheart is currently streaming on Disney+.
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