X-Men: Dark Phoenix is taking a more cosmic approach to the Phoenix storyline this time around, and as such, aliens are involved. Jessica Chastain plays a villainous entity from outer space, and while she’s not saying who her character is (beyond explaining that she’s not Lilandra Neramani), she does reveal what kind of performance fans can expect from her.
Entertainment Weekly recently scored a first look at X-Men: Dark Phoenix as the cover story to their latest issue. The film reunites Chastain with The Martian producer Simon Kinberg in his directorial debut. Chastain noted that she couldn’t say anything about who her alien character is without spoiling the movie, but she did say that her approach to playing the villain is a far cry from a standard comic book movie antagonist:
“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.”
In a separate interview, Kinberg explained that her character is a shapeshifter, touching upon her character’s personality and goals:
“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.”
That sounds kind of like what Apocalypse did with regards to Storm and Magneto in X-Men: Apocalypse, but it seems as if Chastain’s character might just be a supporting threat that pushes Phoenix over the edge instead of the big villain everyone teams up to wail on.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix will be released on November 2, 2018. The film stars James McAvoy as Charles Xavier (Professor X), Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto), Sophie Turner as Jean Grey (Dark Phoenix), Tye Sheridan as Scott Summers (Cyclops), Evan Peters as Peter Maximoff (Quicksilver), Jennifer Lawrence as Raven Darkholme (Mystique), Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy (Beast), Kodi Smit-McPhee as Kurt Wagner (Nightcrawler), and Alexandra Shipp as Ororo Munroe (Storm). Jessica Chastain will also appear in the movie in an unspecified role.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
