Marvel’s Hawkeye Actor Teases New Character’s Swordsman Skills

Tony Dalton, who will be playing a new character in Marvel’s Hawkeye show, recently teased the sword skills of his character. Hawkeye follows Jeremy Renner as the titular character after the events of Avengers: Endgame as he tries to retire and be with his family after the “Blip.” Unsurprisingly, things don’t go as planned, and Clint Barton has to work with the young archer Kate Bishop (played by Hailee Steinfeld) to deal with enemies from his time as Ronin after the Snap. Clint and Kate will also face off against Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), who is seen at the end of Black Widow setting off to pursue Clint for his role in Natasha Romanoff’s death. Several important characters and plot lines of the comic version of Hawkeye will also feature in the show.

Following the events of Endgame, two of the original 6 Avengers are dead, Steve is effectively retired, Thor is focused on rebuilding Asgard, Clint is trying to properly retire, and only Bruce Banner remains. Phase Four of the MCU (and the technically phase 3 Spider-Man: Far From Home) has been largely about legacy. Several characters are being set up to replace the Avengers, including members of the Young Avengers comics team, such as Eli Bradley, Cassie Lang, Kid Loki, Tommy and Billy Maximoff, and Kate Bishop. Clint and Bruce have their own shows, but both of them seem to be more focused on setting up other characters (Kate/Yelena and She-Hulk, respectively). Before Kate takes over the mantle, Clint’s appearance in Hawkeye will add several important elements to his character from the comics, including his deafness, his one-eyed dog Lucky, and his mentor, Jacques Duquesne, played by Tony Dalton.

Dalton teased the swordsmanship ability of Duquesne (Jack) in an exclusive interview with Screen Rant about the upcoming show. Dalton describes Jack as a goofy guy whose skills with a blade are immediately evident. His goofiness is not a sign of incompetence in any way, and Dalton says he made sure to get Jack’s mysterious motives across in his performance. Jack hasn’t appeared in promotional material yet, but with the plot focusing on Clint’s time as the sword-wielding Ronin, he’ll likely play into that part of Clint’s past. Dalton’s full quote is below:

Jack Duquesne is this sort of upper east side, New York, rich guy sort of maybe goofy in a way, but then again, you also can immediately tell that he’s got some mad swordsman skills. So, he’s a guy that you’re not too sure if he’s smiling because he’s dumb or if he’s smiling because he knows something and that’s kind of something that I was really trying to get across, you know?

Jacques Duquesne is quite important to Clint Barton in the comics. Known by his alter-ego, Swordsman, Duquesne is the one who teaches a young Clint how to use bladed-weapons. Duquesne has existed in comics almost as long as Hawkeye himself and has been both a superhero and supervillain, though he’s usually depicted as the latter. Dalton refers to the character as being originally based on legendary film swashbuckler, Errol Flynn (Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood), which inspired much of Dalton’s performance. Dalton claims “everything else is different from what it was in the comic books,” so his research was more so based on Flynn than Duquesne.

Like his partner Natasha, much of Clint’s backstory before the Avengers and even his time as Ronin were only briefly teased. Jack Duquesne could have been Clint’s mentor before he was an Avenger or the two could have met sometime in the Ronin days. Either way, his status as either an ally or foe remains to be seen. The sword fighting in the Hawkeye trailers was focused on LARPers, but Clint may choose to pick up the sword again if Jack forces him too. Audiences can see Dalton, Renner, Steinfeld, and more when Hawkeye premieres its first two episodes on November 24, exclusively on Disney+.