“Daredevil: Born Again” cast and character guide: Everything to know about the stars of Marvel’s newest series (including some newcomers)

Hallelujah, Daredevil is born again.

This week marks the return of Charlie Cox's Matt Murdock, the blind Hell's Kitchen lawyer who moonlights as a masked vigilante called Daredevil. Cox previously led three seasons of Netflix's Daredevil series, and now the character is finding new life on Disney+.

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The road to Daredevil: Born Again has had its hiccups. The series was first announced in 2022 but was overhauled in the fall of 2023. “It had been conceived as more of a legal procedural, and we really brought it back towards an action-based New York crime story,” showrunner Dario Scardapane previously told Entertainment Weekly. “The real trick was to have the DNA of the old Netflix show, but then push it forward into something very new.”

Daredevil: Born Again will feature a mix of new and old characters, with Deborah Ann Woll, Elden Henson, and Wilson Bethel among those returning. Read on for EW's Daredevil: Born Again cast and character guide.

Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock / Daredevil

Charlie Cox is best known as the MCU's lawyer-cum-vigilante, having appeared as Matt Murdock in Netflix's Daredevil and The Defenders, as well as in Spider-Man: No Way Home and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.

Before donning Daredevil's cowl, however, he played the integral role of Owen Sleater on HBO's Boardwalk Empire (2011–2012) and starred opposite Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones in the Oscar-winning film The Theory of Everything (2014). He's also a stage veteran, starring in the Broadway revival of Harold Pinter's 1978 play Betrayal.

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After the abrupt cancellation of Netflix's Daredevil, Cox worried he may be done with the character. “Season 3 had been well received and they had already gone to work on season 4. They'd pitched me a really cool arc for the season,” Cox told Entertainment Weekly. “My understanding was they were really heavy into breaking that season in the writers' room and then just overnight it went away.”

He continued, “I never thought it would be a TV show again. I just assumed that we'd done that, so maybe it would be something else,” Cox said. “So I was shocked when they told me in 2022 that we were going to do a show, but I was also thrilled. It's such a great medium for this character. There is so much story left to tell. So the more time we have to do that, the better!” 

Vincent D'Onofrio as Wilson Fisk / Kingpin

Vincent D'Onofrio's breakout screen role in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket remains one of his most memorable (and terrifying) turns to date. Still, the actor's carved out a hell of a career, working with acclaimed filmmakers like Robert Altman (The Player), Kathryn Bigelow (Strange Days), Oliver Stone (JFK), Barry Sonnenfeld (Men In Black), Tim Burton (Ed Wood), and Richard Linklater (The Newton Boys). He's also been a consistent presence on the small screen, starring as Detective Robert Goren on Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001–2011) for 141 episodes.

Related: Daredevil: Born Again will have 'some of the most brutal action' Marvel has 'ever brought to the screen'

D'Onofrio's height, bulk, and intensity make him an inspired choice to play the larger-than-life Wilson Fisk, a.k.a. Kingpin, a powerful crime boss. Though the character was originally introduced via Marvel Comics in 1967 as a Spider-Man villain, Daredevil later emerged as his true adversary.

"How these two grind against each other is 100 percent the engine of the story," showrunner Scardapane previously told EW.

Cox agreed. “I believe you have to be really careful when and how you bring these two people into the same room because we have to feel like when they meet, it is an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object," he told EW. "It has to feel like it could and will explode. The more you bring us together with no consequence, the less that illusion can maintain itself.”

In Daredevil: Born Again, D'Onofrio's Kingpin is running for mayor. D’Onofrio teased the storyline to EW ahead of the series' first trailer. “Anything on our show is, nine out of 10 times, leading to something that's even bigger and crazier. For Fisk, this journey is a path to more control.” 

Margarita Levieva as Heather Glenn

Since scoring a recurring role on HBO's How to Make It in America (2010–2011), Margarita Levieva has been a consistent presence on TV, having starred on Revenge (2011–2013), The Blacklist (2013–2016), and The Deuce (2017–2019), among others. Recently, she starred in the Netflix series In From the Cold (2022) and played Mother Koril in the Star Wars series The Acolyte (2024).

Levieva's Heather Glenn serves as Matt's love interest. “Matt finds himself in a new and healthy relationship," he told SFX Magazine. "What they discover about each other is that they have very different views about the role of a superhero, a masked vigilante, and that leads to some poignant conversations.”

Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page

Along with Cox and Elden Henson, Woll arrives at Disney+ with three seasons of Netflix's Daredevil under her belt. Prior to joining the MCU, she starred as Jessica Hamby on HBO's True Blood (2008–2014) and appeared in films like Mother's Day (2010), Seven Days in Utopia (2011), and Ruby Sparks (2012).

Woll's Karen Page is one of Matt's oldest friends, and her character offers a reprieve from the superhero antics. Speaking with EW, she assured us that her character hasn't changed in the transition from Netflix to Disney. "What the characters went through still exists, that’s still part of who they are, it’s just that now we’re catching up with them at a different point in their lives," she said.

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Cox, too, found it moving to be reunited with the actors for Daredevil: Born Again. "The first day on set with Deborah, myself, and Elden was really special because the scene that was written was like a scene where we were reminiscing over old times and all the things we’ve done," Cox told EW. "And it just so happened that we shot that very early on and we hadn’t seen each other for years. I mean, maybe not years, but we certainly hadn’t been together, the three of us, for a long time. So there was really, literally, no acting required. The conversation we were having in the green room was the same conversation we were having in the scene, pretty much."

Elden Henson as Franklin "Foggy" Nelson

Henson is a hero to millennials for his role as loner-turned-hockey star Fulton Reed in the Mighty Ducks trilogy (1992–1996). In the years between the rink and Hell's Kitchen, Henson appeared in films like She's All That (1999), Cast Away (2000), Jobs (2013), and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay (2014, 2015). Most recently, he was in Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon (2023).

Related: Vincent D'Onofrio unsure if his Kingpin will ever meet Spider-Man due to being ‘caught in between’ studio rights

Along with Woll's Karen Page, Henson's Foggy is Matt's close pal. He's also his law partner. “I think of Karen and Foggy as being the heartbeat of Daredevil,” Cox told EW. “Without them, nothing that Matt does really has any emotional impact. The humanity and vulnerability that they brought to those characters allows me as Matt to really delve into the darkness.”

Wilson Bethel as Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter / Bullseye

Bethel's career began in earnest on The Young and the Restless (2009–2011), starring as Ryder Callahan for 78 episodes. He bounced from CBS to the CW with a main role on Hart of Dixie (2011–2015), which led to recurring parts on The Astronaut Wives Club (2015), How to Get Away With Murder (2016–2017), and All Rise (2019–2023).

Related: Original Daredevil showrunner blasts 'old Disney scam' of renaming series 'to reset contract terms'

Bethel also comes from Netflix's Daredevil, having debuted in the third season as "Dex" Poindexter, a.k.a. Bullseye, an FBI agent hired by Kingpin to impersonate Daredevil. Though he didn't get the chance to fully morph into Bullseye that season, he'll likely do so in this new series.

In 2018, former Daredevil showrunner Erik Oleson teased the character's debut at the New York Comic Con. “Bullseye’s one of the greatest villains in any of the comic books, period,” he said. "[Now, he's] telling the story of how a real person teetering on the edge of light and darkness could ultimately become an iconic character and what are the aspects of fear and how does someone like Wilson Fisk turn someone who could become a productive member of society [into a villain].”

Michael Gandolfini as Daniel Blake

Michael Gandolfini, son of the late James Gandolfini, stepped up to play a younger version of his dad in The Sopranos prequel film The Many Saints of Newark (2021). Before that, he appeared in Ocean's 8 (2018) and had a recurring role on HBO's The Deuce (2018–2019). He's since worked steadily in film (Cat Person, Beau is Afraid, Bob Marley: One Love) and TV (The Offer, Extrapolations). This year, he'll appear in Alex Garland's anticipated Warfare.

Related: Daredevil actor says Marvel exec cut his storyline because 'nobody gives a s—' about Asian people

Gandolfini is a newcomer to the Daredevil universe. He plays Daniel Blake, a protege of Kingpin. "I really wanted to bring an authentic, sort of New York feeling to it," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "I wanted to bring this very exciting, very younger vibe to it, but he kind of gets right into the middle of the snake pit, and maybe he doesn't even realize it until it's too late. But, it really is an amazing character to play, and I love him."

Clark Johnson as Cherry

An actor, director, and Emmy nominee, Clark Johnson is TV royalty. Not only has he played major roles in two of the greatest crime series of all time — Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–1999) and The Wire (2008) — but he also directed several episodes of Homicide, The Shield, The Wire, Homeland, and many more. This may be his acting debut in the MCU, but he previously directed two episodes of the Netflix Marvel series Luke Cage.

According to a Daredevil: Born Again production brief, Johnson plays a private investigator named Cherry who previously spent decades as a New York City detective. "I modeled Cherry, oddly enough, on Roy Scheider's character, Sonny Grosso, in The French Connection. Roy was my mentor," he said.

Ayelet Zurer as Vanessa Marianna-Fisk

Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer appeared in Steven Spielberg's Munich (2005) and Zack Snyder's Man of Steel (2013) before scoring the role of Vanessa Marianna-Fisk, wife of Kingpin, in Netflix's Daredevil.

Zurer revealed to Business Insider that Vanessa "took over" Kingpin's criminal enterprise following his return to prison at the end of season 3. "Things changed in their relationship," she said. "We come in after a gap of time where they also haven't been together, I won't say too much about that. But when they return, they are the very strange lovers that they are." She added that in Born Again they "start from mistrust and go back to trust, which is their core essence."

Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle / Punisher

Since rising to prominence as the hot-headed, trigger-happy Shane on The Walking Dead (2010–2012), Bernthal has appeared in films directed by Martin Scorsese (The Wolf of Wall Street), David Ayer (Fury), Denis Villeneuve (Sicario), Taylor Sheridan (Wind River), Steve McQueen (Widows), and Lena Dunham (Sharp Stick). He recently won an Emmy for his guest turn on FX's The Bear and is part of director Christopher Nolan's A-list ensemble for the upcoming film The Odyssey.

Bernthal first appeared as the MCU's Frank Castle in season 2 of Netflix's Daredevil (2016). He then received his own spinoff, The Punisher (2017–2019), which ran for 26 episodes.

Brad Winderbaum, head of Marvel TV, previously told EW that Bernthal's Castle steps into the world of Born Again because Matt "needs something done that he's unwilling to do. And Frank, a bull in a china shop, drives right to the heart of the matter. As you get later in the season, especially in the culmination, Frank's appearances are just insane."

Soon, Bernthal will reprise The Punisher again for a one-off special, which the actor will write alongside King Richard and We Own This City director Reinaldo Marcus Green. "It's like a shotgun blast of a story, but also has all the pathos and emotion that you want out of a Frank Castle story," Winderbaum told EW.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly