Nicholas Hoult on Mutants, Makeup, and the Future of Mad Max

Q: When you first auditioned, were you specifically trying out for Beast, or did you just want to be involved in an X-Men movie?

A: This one actually was reading for Beast, specifically. And it came up very late in the game. I actually was down in Australia, where we were beginning to work on Mad Max. But that got delayed, so I called my agents and told them, "I need a job." [Laughs] They sent me to tape for X-Men. I prepared as best I could, auditioned, and was called in to perform a screen test.

Q: Were you aware of these characters from the original Marvel comic books or from the first three X-Men movies?
 

A: I actually watched an X-Men cartoon when I was little. And while I was aware of Beast from the third X-Men movie, I definitely wasn't trying to play that character. Initially, my big concern before the audition was working on my best American accent. [Laughs] But I really started to research the character once I learned I'd gotten the part. I read as many of the comics as I could get my hands on and watched the films again. We worked from that.

Q: It's true: there are decades of X-Men comics you can use as research. Did you dig deep into those volumes, or did you really just want to focus on what was in the script?

A: Oh, I think it's always important to have notes from outside the script so that if the script changes you can say "This doesn't work" or you can add things. Even if most of it doesn't end up onscreen, it's good to have the knowledge in your head so that you are prepared and you have a sense of the character outside of the scenes that are written in the script.

Q: Beast's alter ego, Hank McCoy, is a brilliant scientist, giving him a Jekyll and Hyde complex. Which side of that coin intrigued you more?

A: [Laughs] Well, the intellectual side is something I can kind of relate to, being tall and lanky, yet not being anywhere near as intellectual as Hank. I did have a lot of fun playing with all of the scientific jargon that comes with the character, but his intellect is just staggering. As for the physical side of the character, it's always fun to be given a physical goal and be told you have to be strict with your body to get in shape.

Q: Can you also talk about the decision to largely avoid using CGI when transforming into a hairy blue beast?

A: Even though I'm wearing a big fat mask and the makeup, and you can't see a single inch of my body, there are still human characteristics and a soul that we show that maybe wouldn't be there with CGI.

Q: What can you tell me about Mad Max?

A: Mad Max, from what I know, is supposed to start in January in Australia. We'll just wait and see. George Miller is simply one of the most intelligent people I've ever been lucky enough to work with, and with Tom Hardy down as Max it's going to be fantastic.

http://www.filmcritic.com/features/2011/05/qa-x-men-first-class-nicholas-hoult-on-mutants-makeup-and-the-future-of-mad-max/

HeyUGuys interviews Matthew Vaughn

Q: Is the film about super powered individuals facing off against one another, or about political and social ideas. It’s clearly both, but which first and foremost?

Matthew Vaughn: No idea. It is what it is. I should be able to answer that, but the making of it was such a crazy experience, we were just trying to get it done, and get it finished on time. It’s the first time I’ve made a movie with no time to think. You ask me a question like that normally, I’ll be able to tell you,’ when I set out to make this film I had the following ideas’, but every day we were just making it up; so I think it’s a mixture of both.

I think primarily it’s about the relationship between Magneto and X, but set in a backdrop of political espionage and the Cold War. I always wanted to do a Cold War movie, I’m desperate to do a Bond film, always have been. I got my cake and eat it, managed to do an X-Men movie, and a sort of a Bond thing, and a Frankenheimer political thriller at the same time.

Q: You brought in Jane Goldman to write part of it with you, but there were other writers,…

MV: Not really.

Q: So it was you and Goldman who wrote it then?

MV: WGA don’t think that, but they’re fuckwits. Jane and I wrote the screenplay, threw everything out and started again. Sheldon Turner managed to get a ‘Story By’ credit, he wrote the Magneto script that none of us have ever read. I didn’t even know that. I was like, ‘who the fuck is this guy?’. Hollywood’s got its own way of dealing with things.

Q: How much input did Singer have? It feels to me that it’s got the undercurrent of humour that you and Goldman have brought to Stardust and to Kick-Ass, but it feels much more of an ensemble piece than you’ve done before, and that’s where Singer’s experience is.

MV: You say that, but Stardust had a shitload of characters, so did Kick-Ass, so did Layer Cake, in a weird way. And Snatch and Lock Stock. I’m actually more terrified of doing a movie with one lead character, because the good thing of having lots of characters is if one’s getting boring I can just say, ‘let’s cut to that plot line’. It’s hard to make sure they come across as three-dimensional characters, but at the same time I think it’s more interesting – it’s easier to con an audience that lots of interesting things are happening if I can switch the channel, let’s say, whenever I need to.

The influence of Bryan, Bryan came up with I think, I don’t even know who came up with the original idea, I think it was Bryan’s idea. Once I started, I think we made the film in ten months. We’ve had nine weeks post. I only saw the film for the first time five days ago; I hadn’t even ever seen it working on all these different sections. I got given two weeks for the director’s cut. When I say it was madness, there were times when I thought we wouldn’t get the film finished, and if it is finished, God knows what it’s going to be like to watch. I was taken out of my comfort zone on this film. I come from low budget film making, which is very much about prepping, making sure every dollar goes on screen. Here I hardly got any time to prep, and five DPs on this film, four different ADs. Every day I didn’t know who my crew were, I was like, ‘hey, what do you do?’ It was good for me, because I’d so relied on my AD and DPs, as that triumvirate when you make a film, and here I was sort of on my own, naked, running around. At first it scared the hell out of me, but I got used to it. So as a director I feel much more confident after this one.

Q: Obviously this isn’t the first time you were brought into an X-Men movie, you were originally slated to direct X-Men 3. How would that have differed, and more to the point, looking back are you pleased that it didn’t come to be?

MV: X-Men was a weird process. The reason I pulled out of it was because, I genuinely didn’t think I had enough time to make the film – and they were giving me much more time on that than on this one – and that world was already created. What was far more satisfying about this one was, because of Stardust and Kick-Ass, I was far more comfortable about bigger-budget special effects and all that shit , but I loved the idea I could recast every character, set up a new world, and do my version of an X-Men movie. X3 ultimately, you’re following a trend, and my X3  would have been – you know I storyboarded the whole bloody film, did the script – I think my X3 would have been at least 40 minutes longer, and it would have had  – I think they didn’t let the emotions of those characters – I can remember when I was writing those scenes, when Jean Grey turns round to Wolverine and says ‘kill me’, and the deaths at the end, and Professor X's death, I was writing that shit with them, and I just felt they didn’t let the emotion and the drama play in that film. It  became just wall t-to-wall noise and action –how long was it, like 98 minutes or something, not even that, 89 it might have been – I would have let it breathe, and have far more dramatic elements to it, I think. But then they probably wouldn’t have let me do that. Fox were great on this film. Fox have got this really bad reputation, but they were true allies on this. They really let me get on with it.

Q: You say that you’ve created this world. It’s clearly a prequel, but is it a prequel in the sense that Star Trek is a prequel? If it comes to a point where it’s going to clash with the continuity of the other films are you just going to say, ‘bugger it, let’s just make a good movie’?

MV: Totally. Why would I give a shit about the other ones? We’ve started a whole new – for me I wanted to do my version, and a version where it was more similar to the comics at the beginning, they came out in the 60s. I really enjoyed X1 and X2, I think Bryan did a great job, but I think X3 and then Wolverine, they went off and – The whole superhero genre has been fucked up by a lot of Hollywood trying for big explosions, and lots of glossy and corny costumes and outfit – I was very inspired by what Nolan did with Batman Begins. I’m a big Burton fan, and then you see what happened with, the first two Burton Batmans were great, and then Schumacher took over, and you were just like, ‘what the fuck is going on?’ and they got worse and worse, and they kept making them, and they were getting camper and I just thought – I really enjoyed Batman Begins, a lot more than I thought I would when I first saw it, especially the first half more than the second half, and I just thought, ‘why not try to do the same thing?’ putting a realism, making the characters and genre of X-Men relevant to a modern day audience.
I think superhero films need to change. I’ve said this before, I think superhero films are on the verge of a genre dying anyway if Hollywood – Thor’s done well – that was weird as well, I was meant to direct Thor, so watching that one – but, it’s doing well. No-one’s seen Green Lantern? I don’t know what that’s going to be like. I love superhero films, I want more to be made, but I get nervous. I think they need to be taken seriously as a genre. I think the difference between Iron Man and Iron Man 2 shows, if you don’t really nail it, you can suddenly go, ‘what is this?’

Q: This is the third film you’ve co-written with Jane Goldman…

MV: Fourth actually. We’ve got another one coming out next month.

Q: This is the third we’ve seen. And of course you’re going to be working on Kick-Ass 2 together as well…

MV: Maybe. Everyone says we’re doing that, but I don’t know yet. The weird thing about Kick-Ass 2 is, I enjoyed it so much, but I’m a big believer that if you’re going to do a sequel it’s got to be as good as the first one, if not better. I just don’t know how I can – The business frame of mind is just to do Kick-Ass 2, just shoot it  and get it out there, and it’ll make a lot of money, but I really do love that movie, it was a very special moment to me making that film. I’m not saying it was as good as Pulp Fiction, but I think if Tarantino made Pulp Fiction 2, you’d be like, ‘OK… let’s see what you come up with’ and everything that made Kick-Ass original and fun, I think if you do it again, it could be crass. I’m not saying it won’t happen, but it would have to have something about it which made me feel comfortable that the audience would enjoy it as well.

Q: How do you and Jane work together? Do you actually sit down in a room and write together and bounce ideas off one another, or do you write separately and e-mail scripts back and forth?

MV: I normally bang out a very rough draft on my own, and send it over to her. She normally rewrites it, and then, when she’s rewritten it, we get in a room together and do the final coming together of the script. And then we give it to people.

Q: She’s suggested before that your speciality is very structural, and hers the fine points. Is that a fair distinction to make?

MV: I build the whole universe, the characters and all that…

Q: and that pretty much holds tight?

MV: Yeah, it doesn’t change at all, because I’m anal about structure, so it doesn’t change at all.

Q: I think one of the impressive things about this film was that the structure leads us to something that was inevitable, but it happens in an unexpected way.

MV: The first scene I wrote was the Auschwitz, or the concentration camp, scene with the little kid. I thought, ‘what’s the best way of doing a prequel?’ and I had the idea to start it, shot-for-shot with the beginning of the X-Men world, and then, let’s see what happened after he pulled the gate. That scene, for me, is the crux of the movie. It makes you feel sorry for Magneto, it makes you want to see him kick some fucking Nazi’s arse, and I also thought –the whole thing of Nazism, they were very obsessed with genetic mutation, and the whole blue eye, blonde hair shit, and all the experiments they did – I just thought it was a very natural way of starting, and then flipping to Professor X, you’ve got Magneto in a fucking concentration camp,  and you’ve got Professor X wandering around this huge mansion, and I thought, ‘what a great way of starting it off?’

So they were the first things I wrote, and then, I was always imagining, but you have to figure out: how do they become friends? How do they then fall out? How does Professor X get crippled? And how does Magneto become Magneto? Was the end goal, but it was hard, because Fox kept saying, ‘this movies all about the friendship between them’, and I was like, ‘guys, they only get to see each other for three fucking weeks’, I had to somehow make it believable that you care, and Bryan came up with the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I didn’t know much about it. I was English, and we didn’t really learn about that much in school, and when I read about the Cuban Missile Crisis, I thought our version made more sense in history than the real version. The idea that we nearly went to nuclear war, you just go, ‘I cannot believe that happened’, where ultimately, if there’s a bad super villain making all that shit happen, it makes far more sense.

It was Magneto I was obsessed with, Shaw is the villain, but you’re now seeing all those elements of Shaw, going into Magneto, that was, for me, the far more interesting arc. With Professor X, he’s a bit of a pious, sanctimonious, boring character, in that he’s got too much fucking power. It’s very hard writing when you’ve got some guy who can just freeze people, or read everyone’s mind, you’re just going, ‘how do you handle this guy?’ So I did like the idea of James and I going, ‘let’s make him more of a rogue’, ‘let’s make him fun’, and then how he slowly starts realizing there are other mutants out there, and gets slowly more responsible, but for me Magneto is the driving force, that was the character I most related to, and the most fun you can have.

Q: When Xavier is at university, at the beginning of the film, he’s quite cocky. I think his relationship with Erik is what does start to mellow him.

MV: Yep. I think when he realises there are other mutants out there, and because of Shaw, realising that the worst thing that can happen is mutants being hated because Shaw’s trying to kill everyone.

Q: You’ve talked about James Bond in reference to how you could see the character of Erik for Michael’s performance. Did you have a similar archetype for McAvoy as Xavier?

MV: Not really, actually.

Q: How did you direct him then? We’re you referential to Patrick Stewart in the other films?

MV: No we weren’t, in fact it was the opposite. I said, ‘don’t worry about Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, I think they did a great job, but you’ve got to make these characters your own?’ I think, the way I was saying to James was, lets’ make the character more fun, so that you slowly see him becoming the Professor X of – the professor. When we first meet him, he’s not a professor, and we were trying to show that transition. It’s just not as fun. Seeing Magneto growing into a villain is far more interesting than seeing a guy sadly becoming a cripple, and becoming a teacher, ultimately. It’s not quite the arc you want to see as much, but I think James did a fabulous job, because it’s the hardest character to make interesting.

Q: You talked about gender issues a little bit there, and the way women were treated in the 60s. The film’s also set around the time of the civil rights movement. What thinking did you have about race issues?

MV: We talked about it, because they say X-Men was based on Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, but I think I had enough of a political subplot in this movie. We’ve already discussed, in the next one, does the Civil Rights movement become part of if we do a sequel. That’s a real hot potato, as well, still, so I think we decided to stay clear.

Q: I’d love to see that.

MV: You can only put so much in a film, in the sequel, it could happen. I don’t know yet, I don’t really like talking about sequels because the film could tank, and that’s that for everyone.

Matthew Vaughn Interviewed

Drew McWeeny interviews Matthew Vaughn:

I asked him about his choice to use Sebastien Shaw as the main villain in this one.  The filmmaker reveals, "He was the villain… no, the character, that I was most afraid of.  I kept thinking, 'Are we going to pull Shaw off?' And the comic book version made me nervous, and I would argue with Lauren [Shuler-Donner] about it, and she'd say, 'He must have the ponytail and the cravat.' And I would argue, 'He is going to look like an Austin Powers villain, Lauren.  We cannot do that.  I have to make the movie work, and Kevin Bacon with a ponytail and a cravat dressed as an 18th-century fop will look ridiculous.'"

That's a fine line with the world of the X-Men, though, between what works on film and what looks totally ridiculous.


"Oh, absolutely, but Shaw walks the finest line, even if he did have that look in all the comics," Vaughn says. "Also with him, it's the power. It's such a hard thing to illustrate, the whole absorbing energy and all that shit, and we only really finished his powers up about two weeks ago.  That's when I saw them all for the first time.  Thank god I liked it, because it was pretty damn tough."

The Singer films were obviously a guide for the visual approach to this world, but there are plenty of tweaks that have been brought in by Vaughn and his team. 

When asked how he made those choices, Vaughn replied, "There were two main influences I had.  First, I watched all the early Bond movies again.  'You Only Live Twice,' I watched a couple of times.  I really wanted it to feel like a '60s Bond film, but with a little bit of reality it could be grounded in.  I wanted there to be just a hint of this world of the mutants coming through.  A mutant in this world having powers needed to be the equivalent of you or I sneezing, as normal as possible, at least until the humans start seeing it for the first time.  And creating a look for the movie was crazy, because I ended up having five DPs on this film.  It was very good for me to get out of my comfort zone.  Normally, I feel like the core team on a film is the DP, me, and the ADs, but on this one I had five DPs and four different ADs.  It was a very steep learning curve for me, and I felt a bit naked out there. I had to just sort of bark orders and hope that they were getting through, and I'm thrilled that it seems like the film is working for people."

From when he got hired to when the movie opens, it was ten months.  That's an unbelievable turn-around.  I asked what shape the script was in, and what work he and Jane Goldman did on it. 

"Total rewrite.  Total rewrite," Vaughn says bluntly. "The story was there, but it didn't have what I thought was the fun, and the Bond-style stuff wasn't in there, and I said to Jane, 'Let's start the film off with the exact scene from the first film.'  Jane and I just had a vision that we got out there as quickly as possible.  We really respected Bryan's idea of the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis background.  The main difference between this and anything else I've ever done is that I'm very anal when it comes to prep and storyboarding everything, and on this, we didn't have time for any of that.  I sort of shot this movie on nothing more than pure instinct, making huge decisions every point in the day.  Things that normally would take me weeks of consideration, I'd have to make that choice in seconds on this one, and luckily, it seems to… it was a very different way for me to be making a movie, and there were times I wasn't sure.  Post was an incredible experience, because that's when Fox and I were united as a team, and I can even say about Mr. Rothman that… see, for much of this, I was like a boxer on the ropes, and I became like Rocky being beaten up by Clubber Lang.  And Rothman became my Burgess Meredith character, my Mickey.  He got me up again.  They became my allies on this and got me through it.  It was very rewarding.  I was very shocked, because Mr. Rothman has quite a reputation.  He helped me get through this, and some of his ideas were quite brilliant."

Would Vaughn be willing to do this again with this cast and this world?

"Yeah, definitely.  I really loved working with them, and with Michael [Fassbender] and James [McAvoy], the chemistry was really lovely," Vaughn says.  "I've got some ideas for the opening for the next film.  I thought it would be fun to open with the Kennedy Assassination, and we reveal that the magic bullet was controlled by Magneto.  That would explain the physics of it, and we see that he's pissed off because Kennedy took all the credit for saving the world and mutants weren't even mentioned.  And we could go from there, and I've got some fun ideas about what other mutants to bring in.  I don't want to tempt fate, though.  If the film's a hit, of course I'd be interested.  I really enjoyed making it."

I told him I would be okay with an entire film of young Erik racing around the world to kill Nazis, and I hope that's the official backstory for the character moving forward. 

We also talked about putting together a big ensemble like this and how important it was to give them all something to do.  He noted, "There's no point having a character onscreen if they're don't really add to the equation.  I think it's very important in 'X-Men' movies, with all of these characters, to keep them active and interesting.  It's a juggling act.  I think it's important to give the audience different storylines and characters to cut to in these.  All of my films have been like this, though, so I think I'd be more nervous if I had to make a film that focused on just one character instead of this sort of thing."

Finally, we discussed the fact that Fassbender and McAvoy aren't really doing any sort of callbacks to Patrick Stewart or Ian McKellan, who played the older versions of these characters, and I asked how much those performances informed the choices made by these new younger actors.
 
"We told them that Ian and Patrick played it so you could see that there was a friendship there once," Vaughn reveals.  "I said, 'That's the only thing to take from it, guys. You are playing your own characters now, and I don't want to hear any impressions in there at all.'  It's like when Daniel Craig played Bond.  People would say, 'Oh, he's like Connery,' but they just mean he's tough, not that he's doing an impression of Connery.  You have to create your own versions, and you have to have room to grow in whatever you're doing, and not just go over ground someone else has already covered."

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/motion-captured/posts/interview-director-matthew-vaughn-on-making-x-men-first-class-feel-fresh

IGN interviews Edi Gathegi

IGN: You must be used to big movies with Twilight – how has it been to step into the X-Men universe?

Edi Gathegi: Well the two are different and similar in many ways, but in terms of scale, Twilight wasn't really a massive movie before it was released. It ended up making a lot of money and becoming big, and the others had more of a budget but they were still moderately budgeted. We didn't know what to expect on that. But with this one you're stepping into an already existing franchise. This is the fifth instalment of the X-Men franchise. There's a lot of pressure. But I look at it with the perspective that I'm just here to do a job, and I'm going to do the best job I can and everybody has that responsibility. Hopefully we'll put it out there and the audience will enjoy it.

IGN: Who do you play?

Gathegi: My character's name is Armando Muñoz, otherwise known as Darwin, and he gets his nickname from Charles Darwin, the father of the theory of evolution. My character is in a constant state of evolution. It's called reactive adaptation - so whatever environment he's in, in order to survive he will mutate, basically. If he gets thrown in water, all of a sudden he might have gills. The lights go out, he'll have 20-20 vision in the pitch black. He's the coolest one! What I like about my character's powers is that a lot of the X-Men have very cool powers, but with this one you actually see it happening and you see why it's happening. In the right circumstances you see the thought behind the character and the need to create that evolution. There's a logic to it. And the possibilities are endless with good writing.

IGN: How does Darwin react to his powers?

Gathegi: Everybody has their own unique set of circumstances, but I think every mutant probably goes through the phase where they hate themselves because they're different. They're terrified of their own mutant abilities. And then they come to a place where they can see the beauty in it and they accept themselves. I think my character had it really, really tough, because he was constantly in situations where his body would start to mutate and he didn't understand why it was happening. He was suicidal because of it and he couldn't even kill himself, because his body would protect him. He jumped off a building and his bones turned to rubber. So he was stuck in this life of feeling different - sort of indestructible. And I think in this movie, he's finally found a calling. He's finally found people like him. And he finally gets to be the person he was meant to be. He comes out of his shell. He's a good guy.

IGN: It's a whole new world of fans - have you heard from them yet?

Gathegi: You know what, I'm so excited to show this movie to the fans, because I myself am the audience. I remember my experience watching the X-Men films and I think hopefully we're doing something that's exciting and a good addition to the series.

IGN: Are they less intense than the Twilight fans?

Gathegi: It depends. I would say that Twilight fans are more forgiving. They're more opinionated in the beginning, but if things don't go entirely according to their imagination - which they never will - they'll be upset but then they'll forgive that and come back with so much love. I don't know what it is about those fans. But the X-Men fans aren't so forgiving! By the same token, you can't satisfy everybody. We're making this for the fans and I don't necessarily think it'll appeal to the fanatics, because we've drawn from many different elements of the comics to make this work as a movie, because it is a movie and not a 20-page comic book. So it's going to be different. In the attempt to make a movie of the comic, you're pissing off fanatics.

IGN: How are you finding Matthew Vaughn as a director?

Gathegi: This is my first time on a movie this big, but from my perspective I think Matthew's doing a bang-up job. I know he's a very capable director. Kick-Ass was an experience, a good time. I think all the elements are in place for this type of movie: there's a bit of fantasy, sci-fi, action and comic-book retelling that I would like to see. I'm actually very excited to be a part of this cast, the director, the subject matter, the script - I think all the elements are in place for it to be a good film.

IGN: If X-Men: First Class is a hit, would you return for sequels?

Gathegi: You know, the honest answer is I guess it depends on what's going on in my life at that time and who comes back and who's involved in it. But the stock answer is I'm an X-Men fan, so absolutely. Bring me back, I'll put on the suit.  




http://ie.movies.ign.com/articles/117/1170254p1.html

Nicholas Hoult talks Beast role

On why he took the role:
I was a fan of the X-Men films, comics and cartoons when I was growing up. That was an appeal and obviously working with Matthew. The whole cast he assembled was fantastic. Beast is an interesting character that counterbalances his exterior with his interior - and struggles to deal with who he becomes.

On his character's journey in the film:
I have massively oversized shoes. You do get to see my feet - I have a flexible big toe for hanging and grabbing. He's a young scientist, he's very talented and comes up with great inventions. Then he gets picked up by Xavier and Erik and later on an experiment goes horribly wrong and his whole world crumbles around him. For this film it's an unintentional transformation. The way I see it, he's not too pleased with the way it's gone. He's slightly embarrassed and a little bit grumpy about the whole situation.

http://blogs.coventrytelegraph.net/thegeekfiles/2011/05/nicholas-hoult-talks-beast-rol.html

Jason Flemyng reveals more on Azazel role

On the director:
He's developed so much with each of his films. He's amazing. His vernacular is a lot more polished and his understanding of the language of films is so much more sophisticated. That's a director gaining confidence, I guess. I promised after Clash of the Titans that I would never do make-up again. But I hate being left out of Matt's stuff. On this, he said the only [available] part was Azazel, a red devil. But I welcomed it with open arms and dived in.

On his character:
He's the badass, knife-throwing, sword-wielding member of the Hellfire Club and it means I get to slice up loads of CIA agents. I'm an old lefty and I wanted to turn him into a Comrade because it's the Cold War, I love that I have these two swords and the idea of slicing and dicing agents, I wanted to push the idea that he's a Russian baddie.

On how the Hellfire Club fits into the story:
It was basically that the Russians were way ahead at harnessing the power of mutants for war. The Americans realise this is something they've got to get a grip on, then you get the battle between what was the Eastern bloc mutants versus the Western world mutants, who want to save the world.

On the future for his character:
He's the father of the teleporting Nightcrawler. Mystique and Azazel have a ding-dong and their kid is Alan Cumming, which I'd be happy with. I can see a resemblance there. In the next film, hopefully I get to kiss Jennifer Lawrence.

And on nearly being in X-Men: The Last Stand when Vaughn was attached to direct:
I was all ramped up and ready to play Beast originally [before Kelsey Grammar got the role]. I went over and did my camera tests and stuff.

http://blogs.coventrytelegraph.net/thegeekfiles/2011/05/jason-flemyng-on-x-men-first-c.html

IGN interviews Zoe Kravitz

IGN: Could you tell us a little about who you play?

Zoe Kravitz: I play Angel Salvador, and I'm a go-go dancer who can fly. I have a pair of tattooed wings on my back, which turn into insect wings, and I projectile vomit acid. 

IGN: Does that happen often in the movie?

Kravitz: Yeah, I get to do it a few times. Three times, I think. It's a power, I can do it at will.

IGN: Is it CGI?

Kravitz: The tattoos are real, they put them on with make-up, and then they make the wings with CGI after.

IGN: How familiar were you with X-Men before you got the role?

Kravitz: I'd seen one of the films but I hadn't really read the comics. I knew of X-Men and I knew what it was, but I wasn't an expert.

IGN: What kind of journey does your character go on?

Kravitz: She starts out on the good side with Professor X and Magneto - they recruit her to be an X-Man, and then she switches to Sebastian Shaw's side to be in Hellfire. I think it's just a different approach to fighting for human equality. Someone compared the two different sides. In this film it's Hellfire and the X-Men, but later it's Xavier and Magneto and someone compared it to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. They're really fighting for the same thing, but it's different approaches for how to get there. I think she just believes that the aggressive side is the right side. 

IGN: Do you enjoy playing the transformation of going from one to the other?

Kravitz: Yeah, I don't think of it as going to the bad side, really. I know it's an X-Men film, so that's the side that is thought of as the bad side, but I really think they're both trying for the same thing in different ways.

IGN: What has it been like making a movie of this scale?

Kravitz: It's been great. I've never spent so much time in London, and I really love it. Pinewood's great and the crew is fantastic. It's nice to be away. It's different when you're out of your environment and you don't go home every day. It's nerve-wracking to be on a production this big, in a way. Sometimes you'll have these moments of realisation, where you're doing a crazy stunt or, you know, Kevin Bacon's walking by. But the cool thing is that everyone's really nice. You could be a bit freaked out but everyone's so wonderful and different, so now it's like home away from home.

IGN: Do you get action scenes?

Kravitz: Yeah, at the end there's a big fight scene and I get to soar through the air and projectile vomit and attack the X-Men. They had us work out a lot to strengthen the core. There's a lot of stress on that area. I'm trying to get my stomach area really strong so I can work with the wires. And they had us practice quite a bit on the wires and the harness. You just have to get used to it.

IGN: Is it fun?

Kravitz: It's so fun. The only thing is that it kind of hurts after a while because it's straining you, pretty much. But it's really fun, and you're zooming around the room. It's the closest I'll ever get to flying, so it's pretty cool. 


IGN: Have you been enjoying the period setting?

Kravitz: It's really cool. The '60s is one of my favourite eras in general. I love '60s music and I've always wanted to do a period film. It's really cool, the combination of the action and the CGI stuff. I have the least lines out of all those guys but probably the best costumes! All my costumes are backless because of the wings and they made me this really cool metal dress. I have a pretty cool leather cat suit too. That's kind of my signature look.

IGN: How's it been to work with Kevin Bacon?

Kravitz: I have a bunch of scenes with him. He's great. He is wonderful. He's freakishly wonderful - it's crazy. He's just chill and lovely and really normal. We all freak out when he's around - even in front of him. 'Kevin Bacon's here? What's Kevin Bacon doing here?'

IGN: What about Matthew Vaughn?

Kravitz: He's amazing and a really cool guy - I really like him. He gives us room to do what we want and we always have a conversation about the scenes beforehand. It's definitely a collaborative effort, which makes all the difference.

IGN: Was that a surprise?

Kravitz: Yeah, a little bit. A lot of it is very technical, so some of it is pretty set, but when it comes to the acting part of it, he's very open, because he really does want the best performances.


http://ie.movies.ign.com/articles/116/1169603p1.html

InStyle Magazine Interviews Rose Byrne

InStyle Magazine Interviews Rose Byrne: 
 

InStyle: How familiar were you with the X-Men universe?

Rose Byrne: Not really at all. I knew what a juggernaut of a film it was, but no, I’m not that savvy with my comic books. I’m not a comic book reader. It’s been really an education to learn all about it; I think I had seen the first one and that was it.

InStyle: How did the part come to you?

Rose Byrne: It came to me late. I think they approached me early on and I was working on another film at the time, so I came in really late in the process and it was all last minute. I didn’t really know how it would unfold. And I didn’t even read for Matthew – he wasn’t even down. Then I got the offer and then I was allowed to read the script. It was one of those jobs that was sorted within a week, which for something like this is pretty unusual. But I think Matthew works on instinct like that and makes up his mind quite quickly.

InStyle: How did you brush up on Moira MacTaggart?

Rose Byrne: We had an incredible expert who came in with a whole truckload of Moira stuff. It was awesome. And obviously when I got the role I did research online and stuff like that. This guy came in and gave me this whole binder of comics. It was actually quite exciting, reading it and seeing her, and I felt affection for her because I could see her on the page. I felt I had to really honour what was in the comic and I could see how exciting it is to bring her to screen. It’s like a character from a novel, bringing that person to life. You have a lot of responsibility in a way.

InStyle: Do you have to figure out how much of your own stamp to put on it?

Rose Byrne: Absolutely. We talked about that early on with Matthew too, in terms of how much the comics would be referenced, and it’s pretty loose. The backstories and the plots that the characters go through in the comic are mental and epic. But it was fun to have a read.

InStyle: How have you been finding this big beast of a comic book movie to experience?

Rose Byrne: I did a film called Troy, which was a similar big, huge tent-pole film for the studio, and it’s like organising an army – masses of people and schedules and money and timing. It’s a huge, huge undertaking. It had been years since I’d been on a film like this though. But it’s fine – at the end of the day it’s just you, the actor, and the camera. It’s the same thing. But it’s just the process of getting there is a bit different.

InStyle: How does the period come across?

Rose Byrne: I think there’ll be a few set pieces that are overtly 60s. We’re throwing in a few ideas. I don’t think they want to alienate the audience by making it too kitschy. It’s a fine balance, but Matthew Vaughn is very well aware of that. We’ve been in situations where, until we get sets or costumes right, we abandon it. He’s very aware of not making it too distracting as a period piece. But I think it adds a new element to it, and gives a new take on superheroes, which I personally would be interested in. It sets it in a different context.

InStyle: Do the politics of the time play a part?

Rose Byrne: Absolutely, that’s the really clever thing, the backdrop of the Cold War and JFK and really it’s a hotbed of history, that time. They’ve been really clever making it end up being about mutants! And it’s not confusing or anything, it’s pretty straightforward, but I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it before.

InStyle: How has the experience of working with Matthew Vaughn been?

Rose Byrne: What I love about Matthew is that he’s got this huge studio movie and so much pressure, and yet he couldn’t seem more ambivalent about how much pressure he’s under. I think you have to have that attitude when you have so many people conducting things. It’s like watching Wolfgang Petersen on TROY – they just keep a very level head. You need that. You need to have a certain amount of assertiveness and opinions and I think he picks his battles really well. I just admire that. I see that from afar. And he’s really kind to the actors and he’s sensitive to us. He has a huge task on his plate, but he just carries himself with a real confidence, which I think is very good.

InStyle: Matthew and Jane Goldman have always sought to bring something new to the projects they’ve done – is there a lot of that in this?

Rose Byrne: There is. It’s really clever what they’ve done, and they were really open, once we all got in and started rehearsing, to really developing ideas and fleshing things out. With a script like this, the plot is the star and it’s a big action movie, so it’s really up to us to make certain character choices and really try to imbue things with a little bit of heart. They were really open to all of that stuff. It was pretty collaborative, especially for a studio movie. That’s kind of a radical thing. That’s usually not the case.

InStyle: Are you signed up for sequels?

Rose Byrne: We are, but I’m in the same boat as you in the sense that I’ve no idea what the future films might hold. But that’s common practice to sign on for a bunch. From what I’ve heard of these things, sequels are a massive undertaking to come together, so we’ll see.

Do you ever worry that signing up to sequels might limit your options in the future?

Rose Byrne: I do and I don’t. I do a TV show called Damages, and there was a point where I had to sign on, before the pilot was even made, for seven years of my life. I remember I had a massive question of wondering what that would mean. You do think about it, but it’s so philosophical in the sense that you do the pilot and maybe it’ll get picked up and maybe it’ll go for a second season. The odds are always against you working, rather than for you. And I’m getting older. You think about it, but I’m just much more philosophical about the whole thing.

http://www.instyle.co.uk/news/exclusive-interview-with-rose-byrne-20-05-11

IGN interviews Caleb Landry Jones

IGN interviews Caleb Landry Jones:

IGN: How did you get the role of Banshee?

Caleb Landry Jones: All I knew was that it was the X-Men. I thought, 'What the hell are they doing auditioning a redhead? OK, I'll do my best.' I got the part and it's been brilliant. I've never been overseas - I've never been to Europe - and so that's amazing by itself. To be on a movie with such magnitude as this one is just absolutely amazing. I'm getting a chance I've never had before in my life. I'm getting to fly, which I've always wanted to do. I'm playing a superhero, which I've always wanted to do. Don't look like Spider-Man, don't look like Batman, so it's fantastic that there's one that I do look like, kind of. 

IGN: Tell us about the character.

Jones: Well he's got a supersonic scream. He learns how to fly in this movie. He learns how to melt objects. In the beginning all he really knows is how to break things - car doors I'm guessing, things like that. And he's got selective hearing.

IGN: What does he do with his scream?

Jones: What's the technical way of saying it? I'm trying to think of Hank [McCoy]'s line when he explains it to me. He causes the sound waves... something about vibrations... I don't know the science behind it, but he can blow sh*t up and cause skulls to crack.

IGN: Do you get to do all that this in the movie?

Jones: Everything except the skull cracking. It's a PG-13!

IGN: How familiar were you with the X-Men when you got the role?

Jones: I'm much more familiar now that I've done some reading. I wasn't very familiar in the beginning - I wasn't allowed to watch it as a kid what with Wolverine saying 'Punk' and things like that. I couldn't watch the show. I was really into Batman, but not X-Men as such. Although now I've got a full booklet - it's like 500 or 800 pages of just Banshee comics.

IGN: Are you getting into the comics then?

Jones: Very much so, yeah. When I got it, it was scary actually. In the comics it seems like they reinvent him over and over again. The question was, which one to do. He always has an Irish accent, but in the movie he doesn't. How much to take from each reinvention, how much to put in, that was the question.  

IGN: Did you end up coming up with your own version?

Jones: Yeah. He's always pretty smart, it seems like. He's mostly good. The script definitely defines him more so than the comics do, because I've got to do what the script says. I try to add as much as possible. I know there's a love connection in the comics with Moira [MacTaggert - played by Rose Byrne in the movie], so I try to look at her just a little bit differently, you know, when I can. I know Mystique cuts my vocal chords later on - I don't know if they're going to do that in the movies, but therefore I make it a little bit so that if that does happen later on, for any of the fans watching, they can notice that. There's so much to take from the comics.

IGN: It's quite a change of pace from The Last Exorcism, too - did you want to try something vastly different?

Jones: Honestly, in my career it's something where I don't have a choice. I'll take whatever I get. But, yeah, I wanted to do something different and was very happy this was completely different. And hopefully after this it'll be something else completely different, too.

IGN: Do you get much action in the movie?

Jones: We'll see - it keeps changing. In the comics, someone would shout, 'Banshee!' He'd fly in and do something and then be gone for a little bit. And then 'Banshee!' He'd come back for a little bit, fly and scream at someone. There's not a whole lot of combat, I'd say. But every once in a while I'll come in and beat someone up.

IGN: Why bother when you can just scream at someone and have the same effect?

Jones: Yeah, from really far away. I could just be sitting in a little cave and scream from there.

IGN: Are you conscious that this could become a massive franchise and there will be more of them?

Jones: Yeah, it hasn't really dawned on me quite yet I don't think. Maybe, if I get on a Slurpee mug then it'll dawn on me.

IGN: And an action figure?

Jones: Now that hasn't dawned on me completely, but my mind is already racing. I'm ready to be an action figure. I'd love that very much. And all the redheaded kids will get to go out and feel loved and be able to buy a redheaded action figure.  

 http://ie.movies.ign.com/articles/116/1167782p1.html

IGN interviews Jennifer Lawrence

IGN interviews Jennifer Lawrence:

Mystique has reasons for being a villain in the "X-Men" franchise, as Jennifer Lawrence, who plays the blue-skinned character in “X-Men: First Class,” knows very well. Getting into the history of Mystique was part of why she loved playing her.

“I love characters that evolve and stories that evolve, and that's my favorite part about this entire film — every character goes through an evolution to get to where they are now,” Lawrence told IGN. “We know which side they are on, but with this movie we get to see why."

"That's what I think is interesting: she's not just a good girl gone bad, she's a good girl that's been hurt and kind of finds a resolve or comfort on this side that she really thinks is right," she explained.

“She doesn't think that she's going to the bad side or the dark side, I think that that was just what made more sense to her,” the actress continued. “Because at the end of it she realises that she can't get rid of it. She's tried to be normal her whole life, and this side supports and accepts her totally for who she is.”

Lawrence says Mystique is in some ways a normal teenager dealing with insecurities and learning to live with herself.

“She's insecure about being a mutant, but she slowly grows to accept it and evolves into herself and starts to love it," she said.

As for the evolution of Mystique’s powers, Lawrence shed a little light on the character's growth as a mutant in the film.

“She's been shape-shifting for a long time, but she's just recently learning about her superhuman agility," she revealed. "She discovers that in the movie.”

http://ie.movies.ign.com/articles/116/1166813p1.html

SuperHeroHype interviews Jennifer Lawrence

SuperHeroHype interviews Jennifer Lawrence:


Q: How does Mystique differ from the one in the other films?
This is when she's younger, so we see her grow from an insecure, curious girl into the strong powerful woman we know so well.

Q: Other than the make-up, what was the most difficult part of filming X-Men First Class?
There was a constant concern of making sure I didn't do anything to disappoint the huge fan base.

Q: What is the most fun about playing Mystique?
Once the makeup was on, I was a walking piece of art. The paint really is fascinating and beautiful.

Q: What aspect of Mystique's character did you want to convey the most?
Her strength and attitude. It was something Raven had to grow into but I think it's the most important thing about my character.

Q: What did you do to acquire Mystique's philosophy and portray her character in the movie?
I tried to understand her and learn as much as I could from the comic books.

Q: What do you think you have in common with this complicated and charming character?
I think we're both learning to accept ourselves in these very strange lives we're living.

Q: I know that this is a prequel movie but, I was wanting to know if we will see you in any fight sequences?
Absolutely! She may be young but she's still a badass.

Q: What can we expect from Mystique in this movie? In the trailer she seems childlish and like a romantic girl, very different from what we have seen on the original trilogy.
She does start out like a romantic insecure girl, but she grows into herself, and finds her confidence and attitude.

Jason Flemyng Confirms And Debunks Several Rumors!

ComicBookMovies: In the past you have done fantastic and fictional characters. What drives you to do this? Why did you make the choice to do this one?

Jason Flemyng: To be honest, it was Matt - whether I'm the Batman or a ballerina, when he calls, I run!

ComicBookMovies: Was it fun to play the role and what challenges where there?
Jason Flemyng: The fun was in the fighting - I knew very little of it would be seen, but we did 8 weeks of sword and fight training. We could have shot a whole 90 mins of Azazel battles!

ComicBookMovies: We all know that Azazel of the comics becomes Nightcrawler's father. Is this touched upon in the film?

Jason Flemyng: Not yet, hope they get them together in the next one, love Alan.

ComicBookMovies: When figuring out your role, did you look at Alan Cumming's performance to thread a DNA to your performance as his father?

Jason Flemyng: Alan is a friend, we were at the RSC together. I think my boy turned out pretty good, mutants should be free to love who they choose, as long as it causes no harm!

ComicBookMovies: How much focus will be put on the romance between Azazel and Mystique?

Jason Flemyng: None. Unfortunately she only had eyes for Beast.

ComicBookMovies: Is your character a mutant or a demon like in the comic books?
Jason Flemyng: He's a mutant - looks like a demon, but he's pure mutant!

ComicBookMovies: What the best bit about your character?

Jason Flemyng: I have never had a tail before, can't beat having a tail. It's not in the movie, but you can smash anyone on the Xbox when you have two hands and a tail. It's also possible to make tea and play chess at the same time.

ComicBookMovies: Having appeared in a good few of Matthew Vaughn movies, would it be fair to say you are his 'good luck charm'? And bearing that in mind, how has this role differed from your experience filming his other movies?

Jason Flemyng: He has a great core of actors and crew, we all watch out for each other, and speak shorthand amongst ourselves. We watch Matt's back, no one f*cks with our governor! I'm not naturally very nomadic, so I love working with my friends.

ComicBookMovies: Now you play Azazel, a character who gets a few negative reviews in the comic book world, I wondered if you maybe read anything to keep to the character or if you brought something entirely new to the role to make him more likeable?

Jason Flemyng: My natural hair color is red, so I'm used to dodgy reviews! It's hard to make a mark in these movies, there are so many characters, but I think the bits I've got come across pretty well!

ComicBookMovies: I'm a big fan of your work, the shots of you in the First Class trailer looked awesome. Did you do any research and training for your character when you got the role of Azazel?

Jason Flemyng: Thanks, mate! Nope, the make-up and fight training kind of took care of the character! Oh, and we made him Russian, just, well...it's the Cold War, and I'm a bit of an old lefty and it drives Matt mad!

ComicBookMovies: How was the look for your character done in the movie? Was it all CGI? Or was it make-up?

Jason Flemyng: Make-up 4 hours on, 30 mins off, tail CGI!!

ComicBookMovies: If you could teleport anywhere... where would it be?

Jason Flemyng: Right..... I seem to travel the world every week, I would LOVE to be able to teleport home to my wife every night and teleport to whatever country I'm in every morning!! I'm sooo lucky to work so much, (real secret is I'm cheap!) but I am kinda over flying long haul weekly!

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/joshw24/news/?a=35946

Lucas Till on Havok

IGN: Have you always been a fan of the X-Men?

Lucas Till: Well I never read any of the comics but I grew up on the animated series when I was a little kid - I guess it came out in 1992. So I've always been an X-Men fan.

IGN: Can you tell us a little about who you play in the movie?

Till: Alex Summers, and his superhero name I guess is Havok. I'm Cyclops' younger brother so I can shoot plasma beams out of my entire body instead of just optic beams.

IGN: So is Alex in control of his power?

Till: Just like Scott can't control his power without glasses or a visor on, historically Alex has never been able to control his power either, so it's always been outbursts with a lack of control. In the comics he has a suit that absorbs excess energy but it was more like a meter that would tell him how much power he has, whereas in this one I have something that channels it because I can't control it myself. So I have a chest-piece that focuses the ray so I don't blow my team-mates up.

IGN: Does your power preclude you from having to do any fighting?

Till: Exactly, yeah. They gave us a lot of comics for research and there's actually one comic where Alex is talking about being nothing without his power, because once he drains the power, it's gone, that's it.

IGN: So it's finite?

Till: I could give you the statistic, but it takes like half a day to recharge if he drains it all.

IGN: Do you get a uniform?

Till: Yup. I don't know how much I can say about it, but it's cool, a lot of time and effort has been put into making them and testing them. Three months of testing these things out and it's pretty awesome.

IGN: How has it been working on a film of this scale?

Till: It's been incredible - there's so much money in this, but what I like about it is that you can tell that it's expensive. That's sounds wrong as you should appreciate cinema for what it should be, for the art, but screw that dude - I love watching Chris Nolan movies and James Cameron movies, first of all because I like them, and second of all because they look expensive and like they've really put something into it. And this is one of those movies. This looks like one of those movies that I'd want to be in when I was a little kid.

IGN: Does director Matthew Vaughn bring a British sensibility to the project?

Till: He's definitely got a different style. He surrounds himself with people who know exactly what they are doing. And it's awesome to work with a cool team of people who are going to make it look good. And I find myself telling him things that we can't do in the movie with a PG-13-rating, to which he says [adopts English accent] 'Ah that's weird, stupid American films.'

http://ie.movies.ign.com/articles/116/1164345p1.html

MTV speaks to Zoe Kravitz

MTV: Have you gotten a sense yet about how passionate people are about comic book properties like "X-Men"? 

Zoe Kravitz: Yes, it's crazy! I've never been into comic books, so I was never in that world. When the trailer came out, I looked at it on YouTube and there were pages and pages and pages of comments. People were getting heated. And all the blogs — it's crazy! This is really near and dear to a lot of people, so I hope we don't disappoint them!

MTV: Well, the reaction so far has been very positive, but was there that added pressure on set to get it right, based on how intense the fanbase is? 

Kravitz: When we were filming it, we didn't have that sort of energy. We were just focused on what we were doing. We tried to focus on the drama in the material and approach everything as actors. Now that we're done, we're seeing that people are reacting strongly to what they've seen.

MTV: What was your audition process like? 

Kravitz: I was actually one of the last people cast. It happened really quickly. They were being really secretive about the script and the characters that were going to be in the film, so I didn't even know who I was auditioning for. I didn't think I had a shot. I didn't even take it seriously. It wasn't with [director] Matthew [Vaughn]. It was with the casting director in New York. I got the call at the last minute and I'd gone out the night before and I was hungover and tired and not the prepared person that I usually am. I was wearing a big hat and totally not being a sexy "X-Men" character. I went in and had a good time with it. They called back and said, "Matthew really responded to your tape, but can you come back and maybe wear something a little more sexy?" I didn't know until later the character was a go-go dancer. I went back in and in the next two weeks, I was on plane to London.

MTV: So you didn't have to strap on the insect wings?

Kravitz: Nope! They flew me out and there was a full month of preproduction of making decisions about the wings — and putting them on — and the different shapes and colors. And there was a lot of training. I did do a lot of wire work, so I had to get pretty strong.

MTV: Angel isn't one of these super well-known characters, but she's got a cool backstory where she runs away from home and discovers her mutation. Do we get any of those origins in the movie?

Kravitz: She has such a cool background, but that is not in the film. You meet her later when they're recruiting these mutants to form the first group of X-Men. But it was really helpful for me to know all that information to form the character. But who knows what will happen in the future. Hopefully, they'll continue with her.

MTV: What's going on with that shot of you, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender in the trailer? You've got your top off in some kind of red, velvet-covered room. 

Kravitz: It's really funny. They come to find me, knowing about my mutation, and I'm working at a go-go club. I don't know what they're there for, so I take them in back for a private dance and then we show each other our powers.

MTV News: Are the wings totally CGI?

Kravitz: Yeah. The tattoos are really there and they make them come out of the tattoos with CGI.

MTV:Was there was one stunt or scene that was particularly difficult or that you're proud of?

Kravitz:  I never got hurt, so nothing was too scary. There is this big scene on the beach at the end, and they shot it in Georgia. They had me wired up and really high in the air and zooming around the beach. It was really cold and I was wearing these leather shorts and this backless top. I was up there for a week, zooming around and freezing my ass off. And then there was this one stunt I didn't get to do. They hung my stunt double out of this helicopter over the ocean. I was like, "Why can I do that?" And they were like, "Um, no."

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1662654/x-men-first-class-zoe-kravitz.jhtml

Rose Byrne Reveals More Details About Moira McTaggert

Interview with The Playlist:

On Whether The Production Of The Movie Was Too Rushed:
"No, on the contrary, [shooting] films [you] have so much time. I come from TV-land, I come from ‘Damages’ where you have no time. You have no preparation. You just get the scene the night before and you hope and pray you do a good job. To me, ‘X-Men’ felt luxurious."

On Whether She Was Familiar With The Comic Books Beforehand:
"I pretty much had to dive in. I knew a little bit, but not much. It’s not my world really. I’m not a comic [fan], I never read comics, I’ve never been hugely into comic book films. It was a whole new genre to discover."

On Moira McTaggert's Role In X-Men: First Class:
"She’s kind of a collaborator. She’s James McAvoy‘s love interest in the film. She’s a doctor in the comics and she’s a CIA agent [in the film]. She’s a real pioneer. It’s in the ‘60s and it’s a time when women did not work in the CIA. She’s very smart, very ambitious, very forthright and really truly believes that humans and mutants can co-exist and in fact help one another."

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/2011/03/28/rose_byrne_says_x-men_first_class_production_schedule_felt_luxurious/

Images from EMPIRE

http://comicbookmovie.com/fansites/MarvelFreshman/news/?a=33976
http://comicbookmovie.com/fansites/rorschachsrants/news/?a=33986

Jane Goldman Talks X-Men: First Class; No Current Plans For Kick-Ass 2!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyNU4BlfIU4

Nicholas Hoult Talks about his Preparation For The Role And More!

Facebook Interview:

What drew you to the role of Hank McCoy/ Beast?

"The fascinating part of the role for me was the chance to play Hank/Beast before and after his transformation. The combination of his intelligence and wit offset by his animalistic appearance was fun to play."

What did you think of the original Beast?

"I thought Kelsey Grammer did a fantastic job when he portrayed Beast, his charm and eloquence was something I wanted to try and emulate. However, in First Class I play Hank younger before becoming a politician, when he is a scientist and still learning about himself and his abilities. So I didn't want to try and just play a younger Kelsey but also bring something new to the role."

Are you an X-Men fan and if so, did you have a lot of source material to go thru or did you make up your own version of Beast?

"I am an X-Men fan, I grew up watching the cartoons and films. It was fantastic to have so much source material to draw from, I read lots of comics in the build up to filming to try and get the best sense of Hank."

Beast is my favorite comic book character. Did you feel any pressure to show his feral side, while keeping him as lovable as he is in the comics?

"There is pressure when playing a character who is so iconic and loved by fans, so you have to approach it with respect. Hank is urbane whilst being slightly shy of his mutations in this story, but then later on once the transformation to Beast has taken place he should still be charming but have a feral edge."

What type of preparation did you do for the role of Beast?

"In preparation for the role I watched lots of Frasier and listened to people who spoke with a similar accent to Kelsey, my dialect coach and I worked on creating something towards Kelsey's dialect but without being an imitation. I also did lots of fitness training as being in the Beast costume and make up could be very tiring and tough physically."

Will we get to see Beast in more of his iconic lab settings and sporting some Shakespearean quotes?

"Yes, you get to see Hank in his element in the lab. Some of the genius inventions he creates are shown, and also some of the not so successful ones."

How long does it take to get your makeup on?

"The make up took 4 hours to get on, during which time we would listen to music mostly, or if it was a very early call I sometimes fell asleep."

Did they do any CGI on your hands and feet prior to Beast going blue to make him seem more ape-like as in the comics and shows?

"Before the transformation Hank's feet are a CGI effect so I would wear a blue sock and then the larger ape like feet would be added in post production. I did wear shoes a few sizes larger so that in theory they would have fitted in."

Beast is a nasty combination of high intellect and brute strength. Which side is more evident in the movie, and which side do you relate to more?

"You get to see both the brute strength and intellect of Beast in this film. If I had to choose which one I related to most it would have to be the intellect as I certainly don't have anywhere near the strength and speed he possesses. Although, the same could be said for the intellect..."

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