Iron Man 3 and Shakespeare

"Everything I do is in some way linked back to Shakespeare," says Ben Kingsley, he of the Royal Shakespeare Company who also happens to be the most recent Iron Man villain, Mandarin.

I love his loyalty.  If you think he's kidding, check out this 2010 interview when he played the villain in the videogame movie "Prince of Persia":

I serve Nizam as if Nizam was written by Shakespeare and he was called Richard III. “Why waste my time trivializing a character or a film?” he continued, now fully engaged, his voice smooth and mellifluous. “If I trivialize it, it’s going to spoil three, four, five months of my life. Instead, I consciously think to myself, ‘Aim high, aim very high with Nizam. If the kids are going to come and watch it, let them see Richard IIIfrom Shakespeare. That will make them go, ‘Wow.’ Don’t give them a Punch and Judy show villain.

I don't know what Mr. Kingsley's final resting plans may be but I think that he should seriously consider having, "If the kids are going to come and watch it, let them see Shakespeare.  That will make them go, 'Wow'" inscribed on his tombstone. While it might be true that the man seems to take any job where the check clears, we can look at it more positively when we think that he's bringing Shakespeare into everything he does.

The Shakespeare Geek blog has been around since 2005, making it the oldest continually active Shakespeare blog in existence. Shakespeare is Universal represents our biggest fund-raising effort to date. For almost eight years and almost three thousand posts I've tried my best to make a place where everyone can talk about everything related to the subject of Shakespeare. If you've found my sites and products useful and interesting, I would greatly appreciate your support so that I can continue to do even more. Thank you.