The Incredible Hulk Star Admits to Being “Heartbroken” Over Not Getting to Return for a Sequel

Tim Blake Nelson will finally return to the role of The Leader in Captain America: Brave New World, more than fifteen years after he originated the part in The Incredible Hulk. Following on the heels of Ang Lee’s eccentric Hulk, The Incredible Hulk sought to bring the character into a more mainstream action role — and also to provide the first building blocks for what would eventually be the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) making an appearance in the post-credits sequence. After the modest success of The Incredible Hulk, though, Marvel Studios never returned to the character for another solo outing, and all the teasing they did for the future of Nelson’s role looked likt iw ould never come to pass.

That was a bummer for Nelson, who said he was heartbroken at the time, but that with hindsight (and a chance to continue the role in a radically different Marvel Cinematic Universe), he is glad it happened the way it did.

“I learned from the actress Lois Smith, at a really good time in my career, that for character actors – and I am decidedly a character actor, and proudly a character actor – that it ultimately isn’t about one movie or achieving one particular accomplishment,” Nelson told The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s more about the accumulation of characters, what I like to call my rogues gallery of dysfunctional weirdos that I’ve been allowed to play. The movies need those people to make the leading actors look good, and I’m happy to play that role. They’re often the most interesting characters in a movie. Being brought back into the MCU by [Marvel producers] Kevin [Feige] and Nate [Moore] and Kyana [F. Davidson] to be a villain alongside Giancarlo [Esposito] against Anthony Mackie has been a great honor. It’s been a really interesting adventure. I was heartbroken when it seemed I wasn’t going to come back as The Leader, but now I’m glad it took 16 years because it’s made the character more interesting. And I’ve gotten to do a lot of other great stuff during those 16 years that maybe wouldn’t have come my way if I had played the lead villain character in a Hulk sequel two years after Edward Norton’s Hulk. I loved working with Edward and got to direct Edward in a movie right after that [2009’s Leaves of Grass], so not to take a panglossian attitude toward all this, I still do think it all happened in the best possible way, even though there was a lot of despair associated with the intervening years.”

Captain America: Brave New World will star Howard Mackie as Sam Wilson/Captain America, Danny Ramirez as Joaquin Torres/ alcon, Carl Lumbly as Isaiah Bradley, Tim Blake Nelson as Samuel Sterns/The Leader, Harrison Ford as General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, Liv Tyler as Betty Ross, and Shira Haas as Sabra. Xosha Roquemore, Rosa Salazar, and Giancarlo Esposito will play Seth Voelker/Sidewinder recently being added to the film in reshoots. Captain America: Brave New World is directed by Julius Onah (The Cloverfield Paradox, Luce), with a script from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier showrunner Malcolm Spellman, as well as Dalan Musson and Matthew Orton.

Captain America: Brave New World is currently scheduled to be released exclusively in theaters on February 14, 2025.