Hillary Fyfe Spera Helped Turn ‘Daredevil’ Into Street-Level Resistance Story

Charlie Cox stars in "Daredevil: Born Again" season 2.

Source: Marvel Studios, photo by Jojo Whilden

Marvel Studio’s live-action series Daredevil: Born Again returns with a bold season 2 concerned with what power and violence look like in public, and how it appears to the world. I had the opportunity to speak with Born Again cinematographer Hillary Fyfe Spera, whose work is central to the identity of season 2. We talked about its stark white institutional lights that feel sterile and controlled, alleys glowing beneath sulphur vapor, and angry protestors pressed close against armored police, in a city that is at once beautiful and oppressive in every frame.

Daredevil By the Numbers

Daredevil: Born Again season 2 pits Matt Murdock (aka Daredevil) against Wilson Fisk (aka the Kingpin), after Fisk rises to political power in New York City as Mayor, turning the crime-war dynamic between them into something larger and more public. The conflict is still personal, bruising, and intimate, but the scale has changed and Fisk is no longer a crime lord forced to hide in the shadows. He has emerged as the city’s center of power in the bright light of day, while Murdock and his allies are the ones on the run and labeled criminals in the eyes of the city.

It’s a dramatic reversal of fortune for everyone involved, and the rising authoritarianism in Fisk’s New York City, complete with his own private “task force” rounding up the Mayor’s political opponents and anyone he deems a supposed threat to public order, feel chillingly resonant to modern audiences (see my article here for another such relevant and disturbing viewing option). There are even secret detention facilities where terrified citizens are held in bare cages, protestors and revelations of political corruption and graft, media disinformation and exploitation, and public trials and events that give way to social divisions and eventually political violence including assassination attempts.

So it is that Daredevil: Born Again becomes among the most relevant shows on television, and it’s a shame it’s so far been missed by a lot of viewers who would surely appreciate the series’ moral complexities and examination of power and how it is wielded, and by whom. And as I said at the start of this article, what the projection of that power looks like.

Spera’s photography understands and reflects the nuances and distinctions and dualities that exist in Daredevil’s world, and in the story’s larger messaging that authoritarian power doesn’t always hide in darkness, that resistance isn’t always clean or heroic or safely removed from the people who simply have no choice but to live inside it, because society and those with power force them to.

Spera came to Daredevil with an impressive body of work already moving easily between intimate realism and stylized genre storytelling, including documentary work such as After Tiller, Oxyana, American Juggalo, and Maidentrip, along with narrative fiction projects like Run, The Craft: Legacy, The Flight Attendant, Dexter: New Blood, and of course Daredevil: Born Again. Her range is crucial to the visual language of Daredevil, which depends on a balance many superhero stories struggle to maintain, because it has to feel exciting and stylized enough to work as a comic book superhero story, but grounded enough so the danger and violence feels like it’s happening to real people in a real city.

The series is enjoying tremendous critical praise, setting an MCU record with three seasons scoring above 95% at Rotten Tomatoes. Viewership, however, has dipped, so hopefully as word of mouth spreads about how good and how culturally relevant (which seems especially valuable to audiences lately, and there’s plenty out there for them) the series is, it will see long legs in future streaming viewership.

Daredevil - The Interview

The most important concept in Daredevil: Born Again season 2 is that the monsters have come into the light, and that’s where it becomes impossible to talk about the show without acknowledging its political and social charge. Corrupt leadership, surveillance, media complicity, secret police, public fear, state violence, and organized resistance. And all of this is remarkably reflected and articulated in Hillary Fyfe Spera’s cinematography, providing the visual power and language to the emotions and truths the series speaks to.

So without further ado, here is my extended and in-depth interview with Hillary Fyfe Spera about her exceptional work on Daredevil: Born Again.

MARK HUGHES: It’s great to meet you. I love the show. It’s one of my favorite things Marvel has done, really one of my favorite superhero shows, and these new seasons are the best. So thank you for that.

HILLARY FYFE SPERA: I appreciate that so much. All I want is for people to have a good time watching the show and to do it justice, because it’s obviously such an incredible comic and former show. We’ve got a lot of big shoes to fill there, so I appreciate that.

MH: I was watching the show before I realized or knew that you had a background in documentaries, and one of the things I kept thinking about while watching it was documentaries I’ve seen from Panama and other places, political documentaries and street protests, things like that, I kept thinking, “This feels like somebody really looked at documentaries to do this documentary style.” Then, of course, I found out later about your background.

So I’d love to hear about that and how you translated it into the show, because this show is really ground-level. A lot of shows say that, but this show actually is.

HFS: Well, thank you. That means the world to me. I love documentaries so much. I’m so proud of that background, and my goal is always to try to bring some of the documentary experience I’ve had into narrative, and vice versa as well, that storytelling element.

That was something that attracted me to the idea of this show, and also something that has been really important throughout: keeping it really grounded and making sure that not only do we represent the spirit of the city and the texture and grit of New York, but also that all of these characters are rooted in something, that there are stakes, that it means something.

Especially the episode that just came out, 205, I’m jumping ahead, but we actually have no action sequences in that episode, and we’re dealing with a lot of really hard things, memory and heartbreak and all of that. For that reason, that episode really meant a lot to me, because it is coming from that grounded place, from character.

My documentary background includes some of my favorite projects I’ve ever worked on. I come from a lot of vérité documentaries specifically, which I think definitely applies directly to a lot of those crowd scenes, the shots of being on the street, and just feeling what it feels like to be a fly on the wall, having that respect for people’s time and representing them honestly and truthfully.

One of the coolest things about the show was that a documentary filmmaking team I’ve worked with a lot in the past, Sean Dunne and Cass Marie Greener, actually came on board to do some of that on-the-street footage. We called it “City of Shadows.” Those guys are the best of the best in terms of the documentary realm.

MH: Did they work on After Tiller with you, by chance?

HFS: No, that was Lana Wilson and Martha Shane. But Sean and Cass and I did Oxyana together, which is a film about Appalachia. We also did American Juggalo, which is a really fun short about the Gathering of the Juggalos. Still to this day, I think it’s probably my best—

MH: That’s the Detroit area, that’s where I live.

HFS: Some of the most incredible people I’ve ever spent time with were the Juggalos, honestly. They were so friendly and cool and accepting.

But yeah, it’s that type of eye and experience where it’s happening once, you’ve got to be there to see it and capture it, and you have to make sure that you’re representing it, to me, as truthfully as you can. So it’s interesting to bring that concept into a very narrative Marvel comic-book world, but I do think all of those visual threads are in the same conversation. It was important for me that we were showing that. Shooting in New York, I can’t imagine doing it any other way for this show.

MH: It was terrific. It had a real early Scorsese, 1970s feel of Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, even in the lighting. What was great was that, with New York, you pulled off a lot of lighting that had that throwback element, the feeling of being stuck in that time and place, when crime and everything felt out of control.

I was looking at puddles and the reflections of the light, and it has that 1970s kind of feel. It’s modern, but it feels stuck in time. So what did you do with the lighting, cameras, and lenses to get that feeling?

HFS: You’re speaking directly to my heart. That was a big influence for me. Films of the 1970s are always a big inspiration for me, and certainly New York 1970s cinema. It’s in the DNA of the city, and it’s the city that I know and see. So yes, that was a huge inspiration and reference for us: Taxi Driver, for sure, Mean Streets, The French Connection, Friedkin’s movies.

We intentionally brought in a lot of sodium sources, replicating the color of sodium light, and mixed that with fluorescents and the myriad different practicals that you feel when you’re in New York City. I think it’s beautiful, that mixture of color and type of light and texture of light all in one.

Those films, for a lot of reasons, budgetarily too, had to embrace what was going on. And I think that’s the way I see the city, and the way I saw the city specifically in Daredevil. It’s another level of authenticity and groundedness that we had a lot of fun with.

Charlie Grubbs, our gaffer, who is incredible, really got that as well. From day one, my favorite part of our conversation was: How do we represent that texture, and how can we bring in those lighting sources specifically?

We shot a lot with industrial types of lighting sources, practicals that we would mount on exterior walls or wherever we could put them in the shot. Again, I think it just adds more of that feeling. It allows us to shoot more in a 360-degree world, which lets you breathe and see the city and not be limited to a certain corner. It’s like all those anomalies of New York, you look down an alley and you see this incredible cinematic image that just sort of exists. I think we were trying to both find that, but also create it whenever we could, to have that magic.

MH: It’s fascinating to me how you could make the city feel the way you did. It’s similar to, for example, in Oxyana, when you’re capturing simultaneously the beauty and also the oppressiveness of a situation. That visual aesthetic creates a sense of something being simultaneously beautiful and oppressive.

That’s one of the things I love about Daredevil as a character and about the show: the juxtaposition, and the consequence of his violence and decisions. New York feels like a city that, in the U.S., embodies that sensibility. You captured it visually, the beauty and the oppressive, almost authoritarian feeling at times.

Was that something that just naturally happens because New York films that way? Or were you specifically looking for that in the shots? There were moments, even in passing, where the shot was gorgeous and they’re talking hopefully, but then there’s this almost Stalin-esque concrete feeling, with no sky.

HFS: Totally. I think you nailed it. That is something that’s so uniquely, distinctively New York. You have the Lower East Side, which is filled with so much color and texture and light and sound, and then you can go to the Upper East Side or Midtown and it feels like an entirely different place. The architecture alone can be oppressive or warm, or it can be both.

I’ve been living in New York for over 20 years at this point, and I feel like I’m now able to see it and tell what is [like]… An example of that is the harbor, being able to shoot down on the pier at the harbor. But yeah, embracing the different New Yorks was really cool and so unique to shooting in New York. If we had done this in Toronto, for example, we would never have been able to manufacture that in the same way.

Distinctly with the characters, we wanted the vigilante underground world to feel warmer and more humanistic, using a lot of sodium sources. The directors on the first block, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, really had this feeling of their attic world being like a womb, somewhere very safe for them, very warm. They loved these big sources pushing through the windows, and the use of atmosphere. They wanted it to feel not heaven-like, but like a total oasis in the middle of everything happening around them.

[So] that the feeling of the vigilante world with Matt and Karen, and then also extended to some of our other characters in the same movement, was that we shot them with longer lenses, a lot of warmer light, and something that felt more human, more grounded, more intimate.

Their attic where they’re hiding out in the first two episodes, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, the directors of those episodes really wanted it to feel almost like an opium den or an oasis, where it’s very warm and it’s their safe place against so much that they were up against.

In opposition to that completely was the Fisk world, which was a lot more regimented and oppressive. We used a lot of very white, stark light, light that was almost painfully bright. Even though he is the evil, and everything is very subjective as to what is evil and what is not, he’s hiding in the daylight. He’s just out. So there are kind of no corners there.

So we had that world, which, again, in the architecture and lighting of New York, you can juxtapose with a warmer sodium-vapor feeling. It just depends on the street you’re on, the area you’re in. It was neat to have all those different dichotomies within the same visual language.

MH: New York represents the beauty and the oppression all at the same time, and the story is very much that. Daredevil’s personality and character are very much that.

How much did you work with the writers in terms of the subtext of scenes? The city itself provides this almost expressionist feeling, organically expressionist, which isn’t really fair because you put so much work into making sure those elements come out. But you know what I mean: there’s that feeling it represents, and then you’re shooting it and bringing in that documentary sense of resistance and authoritarian state.

I think about the scene where the raid is happening, and you’re following this guy who thinks he’s the main character here while all of this is happening around him. It’s more than just verisimilitude. It’s not only that it feels real, but that it emotionally feels real to people watching it.

So bringing in those authoritarian elements, how much does the city help do that? Did you work a lot with the writers and talk about the subtext of these scenes? Everything about it elevates those themes of beauty and the beast within the city, within the culture, within what’s happening, and even within the heroes — that everyone is fighting this battle, even inside their own hearts at times.

HFS: Absolutely. Dario Scardapane, our showrunner, spoke a lot about that. It was really important to him to show, as close to reality as possible, every form of that. That was something that, from season one, when I first started, which at this point was three years ago, we talked about. It was part of the pitch I gave Marvel about the way I saw the show to get the job: that this texture, this reality, this New Yorkness, in all of its dichotomy, needed to be a huge character in the show.

It is such a huge parallel to these characters’ stories and their journeys, and their parallels with one another. Fisk and Daredevil are essentially the same, but just on different sides of the coin. His relationship with Bullseye, giving mercy to this guy who killed his best friend, he couldn’t save his best friend but he has to save the guy who killed him, versus Fisk and Vanessa, who he can’t save.

It’s about the cost of all of this. It’s not going to end well. There is a cost to the violence. There is a cost to this epic fight that they’re in forever, and people are going to die who are very close to them.

To bring that idea, those stakes, that element of being human, and the fact that none of us are without results and effects from our actions, into a really contemporary setting that is around all of us, that mattered a lot.

The bodega scene meant a huge amount to me to get right. I think my documentary background certainly reared its head very obviously during that, in the way that it was essentially just us with handheld cameras in that bodega, shooting the scene as it was playing out with those actors, kind of in one long take. The camera just moves outside with them and sees everything that’s going on.

We were using a lot of headlights and flashlights and practical sources. We gave the actors our flashlights and said, “You’re part of the lighting team now.” This is all meant to feel as real as possible, and disorienting, and like what it would feel like, I hope none of us are ever in that scenario, but what it would feel like if we were.

New York was such an amazing backdrop for that, in the way that the neighborhood really rallied against it and came outside. There was an instant riot. While shooting it, your heart was in your throat. This was before all the events that are happening, but I think it was a great testament to the fact that, sadly, these things have happened in the past. We have it all. We know about it. It’s a historical thing, the whole idea of oppression.

So it meant a lot to me to get that right and have it feel right. Even watching it now, after multiple versions of the cut and things that I’ve seen, it still has such an emotional response in me. I feel it.

MH: You mentioned the fights and the violence. One of the things about the violence is that when it happens, there’s not just action, when it’s there, it’s sudden, explosive, and very brutal. It didn’t feel like some superhero shows or movies where it’s violent for fan-service purposes. Here, it’s always about the repercussions and consequences of what’s happened.

Instead of thinking, “This is a cool fight scene,” you’re reacting to how difficult it is to look at afterward. The bloodiness of the climax in the last episode reminded me of seeing footage of real violence, where you instinctively look away instead of watching it like entertainment, even though this is entertainment. That’s a rare thing to accomplish in superhero movies and shows.

HFS: I think that’s exactly it, showing the cause and effect of violence. That’s something Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead spoke about from the beginning. A lot of times, even within the shot, we’re able to go from the act to the result. That’s an important thing, to not sensationalize it and not glorify it.

It’s tricky because it is an entertaining fight sequence, but there are real repercussions to the action. We live in a world right now where we can’t be irresponsible. We have to understand that all of these things do have effects on us.

This being a superhero show, I totally understand that it has comic-book roots, but from the comics, it was always based in this understanding that there are going to be results to action. I think the Fisk-versus-Daredevil storyline, and the fact that they’re both going to this crescendo which is not going to end well, means they’re taking out everyone around them as well. It’s a really good reminder that we have to be responsible for our role in all of this.

MH: One of the best things about this show is Daredevil himself and the idea of redemption. You mentioned the importance of the fact that he tried to kill Bullseye, he pushed Bullseye off the roof, but then he quits being Daredevil over it.

With Daredevil, like Batman, they’re both trying to save their city. When they go out, they’re trying to keep what happened to them from happening to others, but I think the real trick of understanding it is that they’re trying to save themselves. Every time they’re out there, Batman is looking for his parents and that little boy, trying to save himself from what happened and what is still somewhere inside him. Daredevil is too, and he’s also seeking redemption for the things he’s done in service of that.

In the way you filmed Fisk, the light is sometimes almost overbearing. It’s so stark that it takes the beauty out of things. It almost doesn’t feel real. But at times, the way you moved where the lighting sources were, and how you moved him into different environments. Especially at the end, when he’s fighting his way through, the desperation in him, and when he’s confronting Daredevil and saying, essentially, that they both love the city, they’re both tearing down the city while claiming they’re trying to save it, it was terrific.

The show starts broad, with this wider-screen, cinematic feeling, and then you bring it down into the personal at the end. Can you discuss the lighting on Fisk, particularly the redemption aspect of how he’s lit? That fascinated me, and so did the way Daredevil sometimes looked scary, almost like the bad guy, when he was at the edge.

HFS: That’s one of the really fun things: the subjectivity that we play with all the time. Fisk is the evil one, so to speak, but you also see him in these moments when he loses Vanessa and he reverts to being like a little kid. Vincent spoke about using a different voice for that moment, because that was something— and this is the thing, we all contain these layers. All of that past is as present with these characters as it has ever been.

That redemptive light on him is so interesting because he’s almost like a glowing angel, even though he’s this angel of death. And vice versa with Daredevil: he’s in a black suit this year, we shoot him in a lot more shadows, and yet one of my favorite moments is when he’s in the church and he reaches out his hand to Bullseye for that redemptive moment, to give him mercy.

We do a lot of interactive live-cue lighting on the show, and we bring up a bright light all of a sudden. Is it the light of mercy, or is it the light of Fisk, which is evil? Is he moving on to this? You don’t really know.

There’s a lot of overlap in what we’re using the light and color for at different moments, but it’s fun having intentionality with it. It is all really, really decided and intentional. It’s not accidental. I like that there are a lot of parallels, and it could be either way ultimately.

Another thing to mention, especially when shooting the city, is that when we’re creating stuff, we use a lot of interactive lighting to simulate headlights. We would always joke that we have a “trash truck light,” which is like a yellow flashing light.

MH: Oh, I know what you mean.

HFS: Exactly. It’s coming to pick up trash. We have fun with that. We like giving the frame movement, even on a static still frame.

MH: One thing I hadn’t gotten to talk about, but really wanted to, was how the look of the show changed, just having the wider screen. Was that something you pitched when you were going for the show? Was that part of it, or was it already decided?

HFS: It was a collective discussion. It definitely was a big part of it. I saw it as anamorphic, mostly to capture the city. There are a lot of long, landscape-esque lines in the city.

The thing about anamorphic that’s so interesting to me is the relationship within the frame, especially with multiple characters or two characters, showing these parallels and dichotomies. It’s a really great way, just from a composition standpoint, to show mirrored images, repeated images, foreground and background.

Anamorphic lenses also almost have this 3D quality. They sort of pop in the foreground from a focus standpoint. I thought it was a way to bring the show forward and evolve it, and also really make the city first and foremost a place.

It felt like something that was elevating it from a cinematic standpoint, but also still representing the texture and the groundedness. It’s also very much about lens length specifically. We shoot with a lot of wide-angle primes very close up, which shows presence and scope as opposed to isolating. Then, when we have those isolated moments, they stand out. You’re able to get within the characters’ heads more than if you were using long lenses all the time.

Again, it’s that intentionality of visuals, having it say something and have a reason behind it.

MH: I liked how, even with the wider screen and bigger field to work in, you used a lot of close-ups and mirroring. I’ve seen shows and films where they choose that format and then everything just gets shot the same way. But you were still using close-ups, the mirroring, and so much more that the format allows.

I loved the original Netflix show, it’s way up there on my list, but these seasons, visually, really feel like the show has fully come into its own. This feels like a missing element has clicked into place. It’s a different approach, but to me, this is the approach that works best and makes it look best.

HFS: Thank you. The other part that I think is really cool, and this just came to mind as you were saying that, is that there are a lot of different threads that it can branch off into in the future. Since we have a visual language for different characters and different storylines, Bullseye for example, it can go in different directions in the future. It doesn’t have to stay right where it is. It can evolve.

That’s my dream for it as well: constantly moving forward and staying within this common contemporary language that we’re in, which we got really lucky hit a nerve this season. You don’t often get to actually get into the theory behind some of the visuals and really represent that, and let it show itself. I think that’s something that has been really embraced and encouraged on this project, that Marvel can get behind the reason behind it, the thesis. That’s been really fun.

One of my favorite things about my job is being able to bring in really tiny references that mean a lot to me. Maybe people get it, maybe they don’t. It’s been all-encompassing, really satisfying, and a fun experience for that reason.

MH: It shows in the work that people connected with it, that you connected with it and had a vision for it. Daredevil is one of those characters where the filmmaking and visual aesthetics speak so much to him.

HFS: It’s amazing, too, that you’re wearing that [One Battle After Another] hat, because when I saw that film, I was like, “Oh man, it’s amazing that we’re all in the same conversation at the same time.” It’s really cool.

I’m proud to be able to be a part of it in our show, and to represent something bigger than just 2026, but a bigger scope, which is something that comes from the origins of the comic.

Thank you again to Hillary Fyfe Spera for taking time to speak with me at length about Daredevil: Born Again!