Joblo.com reports that baby-faced character actor Toby Jones will lend said face to the upcoming Captain America film as the nefarious Arnim Zola. Whether Jones will appear in Zola's final Nazi-funded Teletubby multi-media experience form or simply turn up as the original human geneticist is unknown. Jones joins Hugo Weaving who has already been cast as the Red Skull. Expect some unethically hardcore and morally repugnant mad science.
You may or may not remember Toby Jones as the guy who played Truman Capote in Infamous around the same time Philip Seymour Hoffman took on the role. In addition to a roles in numerous Victorian and Dickensian period pieces, he's provided the voice of Dobby the house elf in the Harry Potter films, and appeared as Karl Rove in W. You'll also find him in an upcoming episode of Doctor Who.
Zola is undeniably one of the more bizarre designs in comics, even next to a nazi with a red skull for a head. We don't yet know if this will be the look for the character on screen, and truly, it probably doesn't need to be. Would it be too much of a departure for fans if we just saw Toby Jones in a lab coat cross-breeding gorillas with humans, or is it vital to the spirit of the comics that there be some kind of giant head in a torso?
Could he be a head on a laptop for example?
What say thee, iFanbase?
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I say he would have made a much better MODOK, but this seems like pretty awesome casting to me. The guy is a fantastic actor.
Fantastic!! I really could not care less about the casting news, but this is the first that I have heard that one of my favorite villain designs is making it onto the big screen.
A robot with a camera for a head, and an old TV in its stomach for a face, with the personality of a top Nazi scientist for a brain.
While I would accept Zola just being an AI program, actually seeing the robot would keep me giggling for the rest of the movie. Also, a mere AI program is really derivative these days. So here’s to hoping for the original.
I hope he is just a guy in the background walking around with a head in his belly. It would be funnier if they never explain it.
Watch me on SNL this Saturday. I’m going to be hilarious!
No. He needs to be a giant head in a torso. I DEMAND IT!
Then I could make my Arnim Zola costume for halloween and it’d be swellerific!
He looks like he’d make a great Ganthet
@Actualbutt – Modok would be awesome.
I think I want him to be the robotic version strictly for the conversation I think it would bring up between me and my non-comic reading fans.
In all seriousness though, he looks good for the role, and I don’t much care which way they go with it, so long as the movie is worth seeing
Wow, I didn’t even know this character was even considered for the film. Nice casting though. Love the work of Toby Jones.
Just when you thought you’d seen every weird thing comics had to thrown at you…
I’ll understand if he’s just a scientist, or a scientist who gets some kind of robot-y augmentation, but I’ll scream like a girl if he’s got a face for a body. Maybe Cap’ll have a dream in which Arny Z has the TV face, MODOK shows up, and Bucky yells, "Watch out for the internet!" before Red Hulk shows up to call them all ‘bitches’, causing Steve to jolt awake.
A thousand points to Paul for the 3rd Rock from the Sun reference. I love that show.
I have no idea how Zola will look on the big screen but im psyched about Toby Jones playing him. I’ve been a fan ever since I saw him in The Mist.
Why would you put Arnim Zola in and NOT make him a cyborg with a TV belly? Is Arnim Zola just that cool of a name? I think clearly you give him a fake head, it gets knocked off revealing he is a robot (preferably by the toss of a shield), shirt gets opened, we are suitably creeped out. That way you can also avoid the expensive special effect until late in the movie. Done and done.
Film #1 – Arnim Zola works as a human scientist for the Red Skull during WWII. Zola is apparently killed in a lab explosion during an action scene.
Film #2 – Zola returns. This time he’s the classic robot with a TV belly.
I’ll always love Toby Jones for his role in "The Mist" and he was great in Frost/Nixon. THis movie is just getting classier and classier. How ever they make him look I think it’s going to be pretty awesome.
@doughboy it’s a good idea but no one is willing to commit to that kind of story telling anymore sadly
He’s going to be in Doctor Who next week playing the Dream Lord.
I think there’s potential to do a weird mad science horro thing with the Zola design of the comic books.
I’m fine with Zola just being a scientist-looking dude. Hugo Weaving ought to be too busy hamming it up as Red Skull for me to notice one way or the other.