Tim Roth on return of Abomination in 'She-Hulk': 'It was kind of fun'

English actor Tim Roth has spoken about his appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe series 'She-Hulk: Attorney at Law'. Roth reprised the role of Emil Blonsky, the former enemy of the Hulk and supervillain Abomination, in the series. His character was imprisoned in a special facility and the show's heroine Jennifer Walters of She-Hulk (Tatiana Maslany) was hired by him as his lawyer. Roth first played the role in 2008's 'The Incredible Hulk' and was the movie's primary antagonist. In the movie, the role of Hulk was played by Edward Norton, but the actor was recast for the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies in favour of Mark Ruffalo.

Roth spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about whether he was unsure of returning to the role because of Hulk's recasting.

He responded, "No, I never thought that deeply about it. I remember when they changed the actor, and I remember enjoying what Mark [Ruffalo] did. I was a fan of Mark as an actor. He’s just an incredible guy and an incredible actor. I’ve always wanted to work with him, and it just happened to be this, which was kind of fun."

He added, "But we messed around with [the recasting]. I don’t know if any of it made it into [She-Hulk], but when I looked at him as we were shooting, I was like, “You’ve put on weight. There’s something about you …” So it was that kind of stuff. We messed around, and we were encouraged to improvise and play. So we dealt with [the recasting]. But overall, the [recasting] never really crossed my mind. I guess I just don’t think that way. I don’t think franchises existed at that point, anyway. All of that stuff came later with what Robert Downey Jr. and those guys managed to achieve with humour. That broke all the walls down, and off they went. It was quite extraordinary."

In the latest episode, Blonsky, with the help of She-Hulk, proved that he is a changed man now and got parole. He was helped by a timely intervention by Wong, who admitted he freed Blonsky against his will to duel against him in a fight club (the scene was shown in 'Shang-Chi) and that the prisoner chose not to live the life of a free man but chose to go back to prison.

In 'She-Hulk', Jennifer is the cousin of Bruce Banner (the real identity of the Hulk). She is a wise-cracking, fourth-wall-breaking heroine, who did not want the superpowers that were foisted upon her.

The series, created by Jessics Gao, has received positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregation site, it has a rating of 88 per cent.