Leslie Uggams portrays Blind Al in Deadpool & Wolverine, which begins streaming today on Disney+. The film is currently available at digital retailers and on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD.
Marvel Studios presents their most significant mistake to date—”Deadpool & Wolverine.” Alistless Wade Wilson toils away in civilian life. His days as the morally flexible mercenary, Deadpool, behind him. When his homeworld faces an existenFal threat, Wade must reluctantly suit-up again with an even more reluctantlier… reluctanter? Reluctantest? He must convince a reluctant Wolverine to—Fuck. Synopses are so fucking stupid.
This year, I had the chance to interview the actress at New York Comic Con to discuss all things Deadpool & Wolverine. While she was there, she also got to meet fans and sign autographs at the Marvel booth. “I loved it, this is my first time, my first convention,” she shared. “So I was like, ‘This is fabulous. I’m loving it,’ and it was so great to hear how the fans feel about my character. And so, it’s getting that feedback and it’s just great, and watching everybody in their outfits.”
Uggams had no idea what this role would become, explaining, “I’m so happy because Ryan, it took him like 11 years, he worked on this. He was dedicated to it and he knew what he knew, and wow, when it came out, my phone was blowing up from people saying, ‘I didn’t realize that was you until the end of the credits.'” But she also points out the “great writing” as important: “They really care about the writing and if something’s not right, they’re willing to go, ‘Okay, we got to do it a different way.’ and having them there on the set as well, so that we can communicate.”
One thing that stood out to her was the music: “I love the music, it’s so great. They always pick great music for the movie.” While she loves all of the choices, she does have a favorite, saying, “I must say I had never met Madonna before, so I got to meet her and I was like, ‘Oh my God, okay, this is great. This is great.’ She was there with her daughters when we had the premiere here in New York and it was great. She was thrilled to have her song in this movie.”
“It was unbelievable and the thing that I got the most out of it is the fact that parents were taking their kids, which had never happened really before, and all of a sudden fathers were taking their daughters,” she commented about seeing it with an audience. “For my son’s birthday, he had a party and one of his friends was there, and they had just come from seeing Deadpool with his daughter and I thought, this is great. I think even more women saw it this time. Before it was like a guy’s movie, women would go but now it’s like because it’s so funny as well, you know, and so I love that. I think it’s fabulous.” She then added, “I’m big in my neighborhood.”
As for her own family, she tells me that her granddaughter just saw it for the first time at 14 years old: “Before she had not seen it but going to school, her friends would say, ‘What? You haven’t seen Deadpool? Your grandmother’s in it, you haven’t seen it yet?’ So nobody pushed her and then finally, she decided, ‘Well, before the third one, I better see all of them,’ and she loved them.” At the signing she had a similar experience, “Today, I was signing an autograph for a gentleman, he had his daughter with him and he said, ‘Oh, thank you. I love it. She hasn’t seen it yet. I told her when she’s 13, she can see it.’ I said, ‘That’s okay, my granddaughter waited till she was 13 before she got to see them also.’”
As for her fans, she expresses, “They all come up to me, they just praise the fact that they love Blind Al so much and I remember when I did the first Deadpool, one of my neighbors came to me and she said, ‘My son took me to see your movie. Oh my God, it was fabulous,’ and ‘cause I know this neighbor and I was like, ‘Okay, all right, we’re doing something.’ So I’m very popular with the young boys. They send me photos to autograph and stuff like that, and then when they realize that that’s Blind Al, ‘What?!‘”
The third film leaves the door open for more and naturally, I had to ask the actress about filming that final scene with everyone together, “It was so wonderful ‘cause it gave us a chance to see each other again because everybody’s going off to do their own thing, and even though it was a movie, it was the coming together of us anyway as people who had worked on this movie before and to see how it had grown ‘cause when we did the first movie, we were like in a small little set and then, the movie exploded. Then the next time when we came to film, we were on this huge sound stage and I said, ‘We’ve come a long way. We’ve come a long way, baby.’ It was just great, really great and it’s always good to see Ryan.”
Looking back at all three movies, her favorite memory is the first one. “First of all, the fans really wanted a Deadpool, but they also were protective of nobody messing with it and so when we were doing the first one, it was like we were wearing cloaks so nobody could see it because the paparazzi were hovering around. The word had gotten out and everything. And so, we were sneaking onto the set, and of course, nobody could see the costume. But our apartment in the movie was about this size when we did the first one. We filmed the first two in Vancouver and then the last one in London in the famous studios that The Beatles did their movie and James Bond. They’ve got like 11 or 12 of them. They’re huge, huge. So it was wonderful.”
If she could create a solo movie for Blind Al, her answer is simple, “I got to have my cocaine.” Deadpool & Wolverine also officially makes her character part of the MCU: “I realized it just today when I’m in the car coming over here and I was like, ‘I’m part of that world now.’” Who would Uggams like to team up with? “Blade.”