Back in December, we started to get our first real looks at Oscar Isaac as the titular villain in the upcoming ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’. Fans were quick to criticize the character’s voice, size, and overall look. The most common comparison likened the mighty Apocalypse to Ivan Ooze from ‘Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie’, but a number of things have been said during the lead up to the latest X-Men movie from Bryan Singer. Now, the filmmaker has weighed in on all of the comments and explains that everything will be okay.
During a recent interview with IGN, Singer addressed his detractors about his version of En Sabah Nur in the follow up to ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’. First, the director touched on Apocalypse’s voice in the first trailer for the film, which apparently was never meant to be the way the character would sound in the final product:
”[The first ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ trailer] was simply Oscar using his normal voice — which is wonderful; his performance is fantastic — but that was never the intention. We just needed those words to govern the first teaser. So people thought, ‘Oh, wait, is that going to be his voice during the whole movie?’ It’s like, no, but to tell the story of the first teaser, we needed the voice, and I hadn’t recreated the voice yet. What I’m doing is something very unique. It hasn’t been done before. We’re rerecording his entire performance because the suit’s creaky and makes all kinds of noise, you can’t really use any of it anyway. But I want his performance. It ebbs and flows and moves through the movie, and changes, so he doesn’t just have one single voice. He speaks with different voices depending on different moments in the film. So it’s really kind of cool. It’s the first time I’ve ever had the tools to sculpt a performance in post-production, that was already given to me on set and chosen in the cutting room.”
Next, Singer discussed the infamous Ivan Ooze picture. As we pointed out when the photo was released, it was merely a lighting issue that provided the pink tones and he took full responsibility for that oversight:
“There was an image released on Entertainment Weekly, where the effect hadn’t been put in yet, so everyone was — the effect has a pink light on it, and everyone got lit up pink, so people thought Apocalypse was going to be pink. I was like, ‘No, no, they’re all pink. Take a look. Everyone in the picture is pink. It’s a pink picture.’ They maybe just should have taken the pink out of the picture — I should have taken the pink out of the picture. I’m going to take some blame for that. My fault, not Entertainment Weekly’s. That’s the picture I gave them.”
Finally, there was the matter of Isaac’s size. Standing at 5’ 9”, that’s hardly the stature that many fans associated with the all-powerful Apocalypse. However, as Singer explains, size doesn’t matter when it comes to the actor since the mutant’s powers will make up for it:
“People were like, ‘He’s small.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, I got the same s*** when I cast a six-foot-three actor to play five-foot-four Wolverine. I got the same s*** when Quicksilver’s very sweet, 1970s costume was released on an Empire Magazine cover.’ You know, every time. I could have made him a giant through the whole movie, or some muscle-bound guy who can’t act — I could always do that. But the reality is, among his many powers — and you will see him change size — but among his many powers is his power of persuasion, and it was very important that he’d be able to connect with his horsemen, at their level, and that he’d be played by a guy who can actually act like Oscar, who’s a fantastic actor.”
Now that the image of Apocalypse has been adequately addressed and adjusted in the minds of those that sensed that something was off, who exactly is this formidable foe and what does he want? 20th Century Fox recently released the following featurette to answer those questions and more:
What do you think about Bryan Singer’s comments about Oscar Isaac’s Apocalypse? Are you excited to see how everything unfolds in ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ later this month? Let us know in the comments below.
‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ starring Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Ben Hardy, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Tye Sheridan, Alexandra Shipp, Sophie Turner, Lana Condor, Olivia Munn, and Oscar Isaac opens in theaters on May 27, 2016.
Despite being a “professional writer”, Ben likes run-on sentences and puns far too much. For more of his attempts at being funny and the occasional insightful thought, follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
