PASADENA, Calif. -- Casting for comic-book movies is always controversial. Everybody has a favorite, and rarely are fans happy when a role is cast. Remember the stink following Michael Keaton's casting as Batman in 1989?

Possibly the most controversial casting since Keaton occurred with Daredevil, when Michael Clarke Duncan got the part as the larger-than-life crimelord, the Kingpin.

Nobody doubted Duncan's acting chops or physical stature. The rub was unfortunately simple to some: In the comics, Kingpin is white. Duncan is African-American.

"There was a lot of concern about that choice, believe me," Daredevil director Mark Steven Johnson says. "Being a fan, I want my Kingpin to look like he does in the comic, more than anybody. And I met with a lot of big, fat white guys. It was ridiculous. I met wrestlers who couldn't act and I met great actors who were not that big.

"What a lot of people forget about the Kingpin is that he looks like he's fat, but it's pure muscle. In a hand-to-hand fight, he'll snap Daredevil in half. Another problem is that Ben Affleck (who plays Daredevil) is 6'3". He's huge by movie standards. He's three inches taller than (Arnold) Schwarzenegger, you know what I'm saying? So when you see these so-called big men, they're not that big. Ben's bigger than they are.

"So to find a guy that big, that strong, who had the voice, the presence, had the look. The truth is, and the purists would have to agree, if Michael Clarke Duncan was white, he would be a dead ringer in every conceivable way. And that was one of those times where I thought, 'This is ridiculous. The best guy for the role is him.'"

Johnson says it's a case of one of those changes made that is more true to the spirit of the comic.

"And I do believe when people see him, they'll believe that nobody else could play the role except for Michael Clarke Duncan," he says.

Or perhaps as Jon Favreau, who plays Foggy Nelson, wryly puts it: "I can't imagine Dom DeLuise playing this role."

For his part, Duncan didn't want to be included in any controversy, which seems to have died down considerably since images and trailers from the film have been shown. Duncan says he told Johnson in a lunch meeting that he didn't want to be bothered with "black and white stuff."

"I said, 'Are you sure you want to go with this route?'" Duncan recalls. "And he told me that the people at Fox, (New) Regency and himself had complete confidence in me as being the best actor for the job. And once he sold me on that, I never thought about the color thing again."

Plus, it was just plain fun playing a character Duncan had read in comics as a youth.

"The character is very close to me because as a child, I was beaten up by so-called bullies until I got a certain size," Duncan says. "In the comic book, if you read them, Kingpin starts off where kids are picking on him because he's so fat. After awhile, they see that this guy's not only fat, but he's very agile and he starts to fight back and he starts to read kung fu books and he gets himself together and that's what happened with me. To me, the characters are so close, that it's eerie to be this guy after fantasizing for so many years."

While Colin Farrell is over-the-top as the twisted Bullseye, Duncan plays the Kingpin in a powerful, restrained manner.

"That was a very conscious decision on my part," Duncan says. "Because I did a television show years ago, a soap opera called The Bold and The Beautiful, where I played an inmate, Slash. And every time I looked at the tape, it was worse bit of acting I have ever seen in cinematic history.

"I mean, I am a big guy. So you don't have to play it big because you're already big. But in that part, I just really played it really over there. And I said, 'If I ever get the chance to do that again, I would never do that again.' So that was always in my mind, to don't overplay the bigness. You're already big and imposing, you don't have to say it."

In addition to his fight scenes with Affleck's Daredevil, Duncan says another fun part of the film was his wardrobe.

"Well, coming from being in three-and-a-half hours of make-up in Planet of the Apes and another hour in Scorpion King, this is just like a breath of fresh air," he says. "I am so happy to have these suits on and can just have as little make-up as possible on. You just don't know. It's very refreshing to come to set and get dressed up in the nice suits that they had made for me and then to be able to have to fight in these suits is really like the coolest thing on earth at this point. I love it."

In his usual fun bravado, Duncan says he wants Wilson Fisk to return for a rematch in a possible sequel.

"Like I told Mark, 'You've got to bring him back.' And no matter what he says, Daredevil can never beat Kingpin one-on-one," Duncan says. "He did it this time because he did that little flip off the wall and I wasn't expecting that one.

"But the next time we fight, it'll be a different story. But he cannot beat Kingpin. Nobody can beat Kingpin one-on-one."

Rob Allstetter, Deputy Sports Editor for The Detroit News, has been a comics journalist for the past decade, having written for numerous publications. He currently publishes The Comics Continuum. He can be reached at RobAlls@aol.com.

The Trailer Park Archive

July 2 2003 - Hellboy June 25, 2003 - Ang Lee June 18, 2003 - Eric Bana June 11, 2003 - Spider-Man Animation June 4 , 2003 - Lou Ferrigno May 27 , 2003 - Teen Titans May 20 , 2003 - Bryan Singer May 14 , 2003 - Al Gough May 8 , 2003 - Kelly Hu April 22, 2003 - Aaron Stanford April 18, 2003 - James Marsden April 15, 2003 - Jaime King April 8, 2003 - Halle Berry April 2, 2003 - Anna Paquin March 26 , 2003 - Scott McNeil March 21 , 2003 - Alan Cumming March 18 , 2003 - Michael Rosenbaum March 14 , 2003 - Ted Raimi: The "Other" Raimi Is Coming Back March 11 , 2003 - Maria Canals likes the call of the wild March 7 , 2003 - John Shea - Welcome to Mutant X March 4 , 2003 - Anthony Cistaro - Witchblade February 27 , 2003 - David Kaye - Professor X February 18 , 2003 - Victor Webster February 14 , 2003 - Ben Affleck February 11 , 2003 - Colin Farrell February 7 , 2003 - Comic Controversy? January 31 , 2003 - Static Shock January 24 , 2003 - Jennifer Garner