Alessandro Nivola in “Kraven the Hunter.”
When it came to playing an iconic Spider-Man universe villain in the new Marvel movie Kraven the Hunter, Alessandro Nivola said he let the visual effects artists do all the heavy lifting.
Nivola—the Many Saints of Newark star who is also currently starring in the new films The Brutalist and The Room Next Door—said not being subject to hours in the makeup chair to play The Rhino in Kraven the Hunter gave him the opportunity to delve into the psyche of his human alter-ego Aleksei Sytsevich.
“The performance was a character exploration for me. I didn’t really have to do any sort of running around or fighting people, wearing spandex or a cape or a mask or any kind of superhero stuff,” Nivola told me in a Zoom conversation on Wednesday.
“It was about finding a character that would serve the story and be a great villain in the vein of the James Bond movies,” Nivola added. “He’s a Russian oligarch-turned-cryptocurrency farmer, who is wracked with feelings of impotence and having spent a lifetime being humiliated by a stronger man than he was.”
The stronger man Nivola speaks of is Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe), a Russian mobster and rival of Aleksei. Nikolai is also the father of Sergei Kravinoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who survived a brutal attack as a teen (Levi Miller) by a ferocious lion. After being mauled by the lion, the animal’s blood drops into one of Sergei’s open wounds.
Combined with a mystical potion given to him by his friend, Calypso (Diaana Babnicova), Sergei suddenly gains the power of his apex predator attacker and has the strength, speed and agility of the beast.
Becoming a hunter known only as Kraven who hunts down evil men like his father, Sergei (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) returns to his family years after the lion attack to reunite with his family.
Shortly after the reunion, though, Kraven’s brother, Dmitri (Fred Hechinger) is kidnapped by Aleksei, leading to a climactic showdown with the man who becomes The Rhino.
Directed by J.C. Chandor, Kraven the Hunter also stars Christopher Abbott and Ariana DeBose—who plays the adult version of Calypso.
How Alessandro Nivola Wrapped His Mind Around Playing The Rhino In ‘Kraven the Hunter’
In Kraven the Hunter, Alessandro Nivola brings a playful menace to his portrayal of Aleksei Sytsevich, and steals every scene he’s in by imbuing the character with the perfect amount of whimsical yet maniacal charm.
When Nivola was preparing for the role, though, he needed to first master an accent for the character, which he found in his friend, venerable Russian poet Philip Nikolayev.
“He’s a great poet and he comes to visit us all the time,” Nivola recalled. “When I was preparing the role, he was hanging around, smoking on our balcony and I settled on him as my model for the character. I basically did an impersonation of his voice. Also, in the first few scenes in the film [which were in flashback], I had a wig made to look just like him.”
Ultimately, though, Nivola said his “challenge was to find the balance of humor and menace that the tone of the movie required.”
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Alessandro Nivola at the “Kraven the Hunter” world premiere at AMC Lincoln … [+]
Eventually, Nivola transforms into the Rhino in Kraven the Hunter. Naturally, there are scenes where Nivola appears opposite Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s title character, but Nivola said most of The Rhino’s face-off against Kraven was created via movie magic.
“We have a big final showdown between us, which was all handled by a stunt double and some good computer guys—apart from like a day where I filmed a couple of key moments [with Aaron],” Nivola noted.
The actor said he sort of became Rhino that day, but not in the way you’d expect.
“It was funny,” Nivola recalled with a laugh. “They put me in some sort of rubber muscle suit under my clothes just to suggest the size of what I become in that moment, and I kept joking that Aaron had spent months in the gym trying to look like I did and I just put on this synthetic rubber suit.”
One of Nivola’s upcoming films is Downton Abbey 3, which is currently set for a September 2025 release. In addition to starring opposite the regular cast of the hit TV series-turned-film franchise, one of Nivola’s co-stars in the film is his longtime friend Paul Giamatti.
The reunion gave Nivola and Giamatti to discuss the comic book movie role that they have in common.
“We were joking about stuff because first of all, we’ve known each other since I was 18. I was an undergrad at Yale when he was a Yale Drama student and we were in plays together back when I was still a teenager,” Nivola recalled. “So, it was a fun reunion and then we realized that he had played The Rhino in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. So we said, ‘We both played the f—-ing Rhino!’”
Alessandro Nivola’s Kraven the Hunter and The Room Next Door are both in theaters, while The Brutalist opens in theaters on Dec. 20.
