Iwan Rheon Will Convince You Maximus Isn’t Bad At All

I sat down with Iwan Rheon at San Diego Comic-Con and, despite all the trailers suggesting he’s the villain of the Inhumans series (which he very well may be), the suave actor convinced me his character may actually be a hero. But then again, this is Maximus the Mad, he’s like the most persuasive character of all time. In the comics, he’s too smart for his own good, the type of guy who could convince himself that whatever he’s doing is good despite the cost and consequences.

“He loves his family, they are the only thing he has. In a way, it’s a great sacrifice to stand up to them and be ruthless because he believes that is the only way to save the Inhumans. He doesn’t want to hurt them, it breaks his heart,” Rheon told Player One.

Maximus is in an interesting position. Terragenesis rendered him powerless. In terms of the Inhuman society, that means you are sent right down to the bottom of the barrell. But because Maximus is the brother of Black Bolt, the king, he got to be part of the Royal Family. This gives him the ability to better understand and relate to the average person.

“Everyone treats him like the runt because he’s just a human, which is a very difficult thing for him to deal with and has been dealing with it all his life. But he understands the people more, he can see the suffering of the lower class and he wants to change that. The imminent threat of humanity discovering the inhumans-- him and his brother have very different views about how to move forward,” he said.

Rheon describes his character as a “charismatic revolutionary." He says Maximus believes he would have made a better king and is just “the younger brother who basically got screwed over.”

“He can speak. That silence that Black Bolt has is limiting and makes him quite cold, whereas Maximus is a man of the people and he can talk to the people and see their needs and what they want and he believes it’s an archaic the system they live in,” he said.

As of right now, Maximus seems like the type of guy we need in office in the real world. In fact, according to creator Scott Buck and director Roel Reiné, there will be a lot of similarities to the real world.

“The conflict in the characters and the dynamics between the royal family are so based out of how the world is now and the political state. I think people will be attracted to it,” Reine said.

Buck agrees.

“We were not particularly aiming to be political but we are touching on a lot of subjects that are especially topical, so we had to be careful about how we tell the story,” Buck said. “Their society is not a fair society, not a just society, they are the royal family and they are not fully aware of the world they live in. Only when they themselves are forced to become refugees that their eyes open to the society they lived in. The audience may not like some of these people all that much, so hopefully they will be patient and learn how these characters are struggling to change.”

Considering Buck’s statements, it may not be Maximus whom we dislike, at least at first. One of the only human characters in the show named Louise, played by Ellen Woglom, says she identifies more with Maximus’ ideology.

“Maximus, a lot of the things he is saying at the beginning of the show are things we absolutely believe in. He’s talking about the injustices of the world, so in many ways he’s more likeable and approachable than the other characters,” Woglom said.

While right now, the internet is hating Maximus, it just may be #TeamMaximus trending on Twitter in the very near future. Inhumans premieres in IMAX September 1.