Matthew Vaughn Eyed Colin Firth For ‘X-Men: First Class’
A couple of brief bits of comic movie background and what-ifs.
First up, fresh from being cast as General Zod in Zack Snyder‘s “Man Of Steel,” Michael Shannon wasted no time in sharing the surreal experience of landing the role in a Q&A at the River Run Film Festival moderated by Jeff Nichols, who directed the actor in the astounding and criminally underseen “Shotgun Stories” and the upcoming “Take Shelter.” Shannon recalls being surprised by even being considered for the movie and compares his meeting with Snyder — during which the director explained every beat of the film — to being on acid, and talks about the audition Warner Bros. slyly insisted on before letting him get cast in the movie. It’s pretty entertaining. Check out the Q&A after the jump (via Deadline).
Meanwhile, the folks over at Total Film recently chatted with Matthew Vaughn who revealed that Colin Firth was on his list to play Sebastian Shaw during the casting stages of “X-Men: First Class.”
“There were only two people I wanted for Shaw,” said Vaughn. “It was between Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon.”
“The reason I thought Firth would be interesting was purely because you’ve never seen him play a villain and I think he would’ve done something really special with it,” he explained. “So I said [to the studio] if you’re willing to go with a European actor, I want Firth – and if it has to be American, I want Bacon because I think both those guys are such great actors.” And well, we all know who eventually got the part though Firth is an interesting “what-could-have-been.”
“Man Of Steel” hits in December 2012, with “X-Men: First Class” around the corner on June 3rd.
“The reason I thought Firth would be interesting was purely because you’ve never seen him play a villain\”
Shakespeare in Love, The English Patient
As General Zod will be in Man of Steel, they have to include Non, Ursa, Faora, Quex-Ul, Nam-Ek and Aethyr-Ka.
They will probably cast Leighton Meester, Jessica Szohr or Evan Rachel Wood as Ursa.
As the Hellfire Club will be in X-Men: First Class, they have to include Harry Leland, Donald Pierce, Tessa and Selene.
As it stands, it seems that it will only be Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) and Emma Frost (January Jones) along with a bunch of nameless henchmen in the film.