Mike Colter Opens Up About 'Luke Cage,' Explains Character's Status Quo

Prior to the premiere of Marvel's "Luke Cage" this Friday, the said series' lead Mike Colter sat down with IGN and Variety, as he shared Netflix' take on the character, and his link with the web platform's previous Marvel outing, "Jessica Jones."

First up, he was quizzed regarding his thoughts on being introduced in "Jessica Jones," to which he responded, "What I liked about Jessica is that you really... I always use this example. You're not always the same person around everyone you know. You go home, you hang out with your classmates from high school, at your high school reunion, and you might be a different person to them. And you might not necessarily behave the same way around your mom that you would with your wife or your boss or your fraternity brothers.

This is a different world, sometimes, and people have to change here and there. So when I looked at Luke in Jessica's world, what I appreciated about it - what it allowed me to do because I wasn't playing the lead - was that there's a side of him where I think we saw him in a very vulnerable sense. He was looking for something, a connection, he was in a bit of a freefall in a sense," mused Colter. In a similar vein to the comics, his iteration of Luke Cage served as a partner of sorts to Krysten Ritter's Jessica Jones. He was first shown as a bar owner who ran into Jones during the course of her investigation, which led to a strange relationship between the two.

He then goes on to differentiate the feel of "Luke Cage" from Jessica Jones, sharing that Cage will be an entirely different person from the one we saw in "Jessica Jones."

"Once you come into the Luke Cage series, it's a different world, because he's in a different gear now. You know, he's almost in neutral, because when you start the series he's trying to regroup and trying to figure out what's his next move. And then the events that happen in the first few episodes get him going, they catapult him into action. And then by episode three, you see his strength. Not at full force, because he's not killing anyone -- he's not hurting anyone -- but he's getting the job done. He's not just sitting around watching things happen. He's being an active part in making things happen."

Lastly, he was asked by Variety about the kind of flavor his version of Cage will bring to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Netflix Marvels, to which he said, "Luke comes with a certain amount of emotional depth. As a black man in today's culture, what he represents and what he's dealing with in his own life - being a fugitive on the run but being innocent, but at the same time not feeling sorry for himself - he's always thinking about the community, and thinking about things in a larger sense in his life. He wants more than just this thing that he's doing now - it was kind of thrust upon him.

He's very thoughtful about his actions. He has no agenda with his powers. He's seen what helping out leads to; he doesn't see the point. It never ends well. He doesn't have a costume, he doesn't have a mask, everybody knows who he is. So I think he brings a certain gravitas that says, "I don't want to rush to judgment about anyone. I don't want to do anything until we just talk about this, because everything has a consequence." I see him as the consigliere of the group."

All episodes of "Luke Cage" is slated for release this Friday, on Netflix.