Dominic Cooper & Alfre Woodard Talk Possible MCU Returns

Marvel Studios is no stranger to bringing back Marvel Cinematic Universe characters after a lengthy hiatus, such as William Hurt’s Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross in Captain America: Civil War or Krysten Ritter’s Jessica Jones in the upcoming Daredevil: Born Again Season 2. Ahead of the next two star-studded Avengers movies, two more alums are making it known that they want to return to the MCU.

What did Dominic Cooper and Alfre Woodard say about an MCU return?

While promoting their new AppleTV+ series, The Last Frontier, Dominic Cooper and Alfre Woodard both revealed that they are ready to rejoin the MCU. Cooper has been part of the MCU since its first phase, appearing as a young Howard Stark in the film Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) and the television series Agent Carter (2015-16) and What If…? (2021-24). As for Woodard, she is best known for portraying Mariah Stokes Dillard/Black Mariah in Luke Cage (2016-18), although she also had a cameo in Captain America: Civil War (2016) as a different character, Miram Sharpe.

“I mean, I don’t know. I’m still good friends with [Marvel]. I don’t know whether there’s a world…because I’m stuck in the ’50s,” explained Cooper to ComicBookMovie as to why his MCU return is doubtful. “And there’s another actor [John Slattery] who plays [an older] him with Robert Downey Jr., so it’s quite sad. There was the TV show [Agent Carter] that was really fun.”

Despite Slattery portraying Howard Stark from the 1970s on in the MCU, Cooper remains interested in revisiting the role, largely “because he’s an amazing character. He’s such fun, but he’s from a certain time.” The actor added, “I look back on Captain America and the Marvel world…you’re thrown into it at the time, and you don’t realise what an incredible thing it is to be part of. To get to have been with Stan [Lee]. To do a scene with him and be like, ‘Oh, really? You wrote those comics?’ It was cool. Now, I’m like, ‘Wow.’ I really hope I get the option to play him again because he’s really fun.”

As for Woodard, she would be down to come back as either Mariah or Miriam in the MCU. “I would go back in a heartbeat, but Cheo [Hodari Coker] and I were talking about, ‘Oh, they hated to see Mariah go because she was so wonderfully compromised and fine with it.’ I said, ‘No, she’s got to go.’ I didn’t want her rehabilitated so she could stay on the show,” she explained, noting that the only possible way to bring Mariah back would be through “flashbacks.”

Woodard shared that she “would love [to return as Miriam],” which was a role she got because she was “close friends” with Robert Downey Jr. She recalled, “He had that one scene where he meets the mother, and he said, ‘You know, Tony Stark is giving up a lot to actually agree to this program of coming in cahoots with the government, so it has to happen in that scene.’ Something has to happen that allows him to do that, and he asked for me.”

Captain America: The First Avenger, Agent Carter, Luke Cage, Captain America: Civil War, and What If…? are available to stream on Disney+, while The Last Frontier premieres on Apple TV+ on October 10, 2025.

Originally reported by Lee Freitag on SuperHeroHype.

Source: Comingsoon.net