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Ben Kingsley Reveals Possible Identity Of The Mandarin

One of the best, but controversial casting choices was Ben Kingsley as the Mandarin in Iron Man 3. I know that there were those who didn’t like that the changed his ethnicity from Chinese, but he was still fantastic.

That is, until it was revealed he wasn’t the Mandarin, but Trevor Slattery, an out of work actor playing a role cooked up by Tony Stark nemesis Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce). If there were a few people against Kinsley’s casting, there were even more people against this twist in the movie.

Just to make sure that the audience understood that Marvel had not written out the character from the Marvel Cinematic Universe entirely, they produced a one-shot short film called All Hail the King. In it, Trevor is broken out of jail by The Ten Rings, the Mandarin’s terrorist organization from the first two Iron Man films, apparently to be punished by the Mandarin himself. In an interview with IGN, Kingsley was asked whether audiences would ever see Trevor again:

It’s up to the powers that be to decide whether or not they’d want to introduce Trevor, whether or not they’d want to reintroduce the Mandarin.

Back up a second there, Mr. Kingsley, what do you mean by, reintroduce He elaborated by asking a very interesting question:

Has the Mandarin invented Trevor, or has Trevor invented the Mandarin? Which is which? The Mandarin could be so supremely intelligent that he could have said, ‘You know what? I’ll invent this actor, and he will be my mask.’ You know, which is which? Who’s pulling the strings.

Now, this is me just free-thinking here, but I would love to revisit that world. But Trev, bless him, may have made an indelible mark on that world. So everyone might say, ‘Is it Trev under there?’ So they’d have to approach it quite carefully, and so would I, but I would love to go back to that world, yeah.”

Honestly, when I heard that Marvel was making All Hail the King, this is what I was hoping for, that Trevor was actually the Mandarin, and it was a double fake out. After the short film, I was pretty sure it was confirmed that Trevor was not the Mandarin, and exactly who he said he was… even showing that he starred in failed television pilot.

And yet — and yet I can’t help but think that something is amiss in the short film. While Trevor is in prison, he just somehow manages to create an organization that caters to his every whim? It even goes as far as him having his own butler, and then instead of having him killed off, the Ten Rings kidnap him so even his jail time is incredibly short… how convenient. Could it be that the Mandarin’s cover as Trevor is so complete, that even most of his henchmen don’t know who he really is??I guess anything is possible in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Would you like to see Ben Kingsley return as the real Mandarin? Let us know in the comments below!

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