“I don’t know what I can describe about this character without giving everything away,” Jessica Chastain responded when asked about her enigmatic villain role in ‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix’. What little we do know, is that she is an alien, bringing a cosmic side to the ‘X-Men’ film universe for the first time and that she is a shapeshifter of some sort. It’s possible she is a Skrull, as, according to James Gunn, Fox and Marvel Studios share the rights to those aliens, but that is just speculation.
Producer/director Simon Kinberg would only off this bit of insight:
“Her character is way way smarter than we are. What she realizes is she can use [Jean Grey] to manipulate this world, to turn it against itself.”
As for Chastain herself, she became friends with Kinberg when he produced her film ‘The Martian’. It was perhaps Kinberg’s involvement– he is making his directing debut with ‘Dark Phoenix’– that lured the normally serious-minded Oscar nominee to play in the ‘X-Men’ sandbox.
“I was really excited for him to have his directorial debut and also it was the script. I’ve always wanted to do a big comic book franchise-y film but I had some issues with the female characters in the films I was being offered. I was really pleased with this script because I think it’s a departure from the norm.
“Simon and I first sat down in Montreal and we were talking about the character and I said ‘I don’t know if this is right but I keep thinking of the vet who tells you you need to put your dog down. There’s something very clinical about it.’ He loved it and we kind of expanded the character from there.”
While the ‘Dark Phoenix Saga’ is the most famous ‘X-Men’ comic book story, it is also one that is strangely the least X-Men-y. It has nothing to do with the usual themes of mutant persecution and becomes a full-on space opera, when the alien Shi’ar pit the heroes against their own cosmic champions, the Royal Guard, in a death match on the moon.
It remains to be seen just how spacey the film will be. We do know that the botched space rescue mission which initially transforms Jean into the Phoenix is part of the story.
But will we get an entire space army coming for Jean’s head like they did in the comics?
What do you think? Any guesses as to the mysterious identity of Chastain’s character?
Source: Entertainment Weekly
