Edi Gathegi Discusses His X-Men: First Class Character and the Difference Between X-Men and Twilight Fans
Posted 05.25.11 by Ryan
The cast of director Matthew Vaughn's upcoming X-Men prequel, X-Men: First Class is filled with established actors, Oscar nominees, and up-and-coming stars, but only Edi Gathegi has experience being involved a franchise filled with obsessive fans, having appeared as the vampire Laurent in the first two Twilight movies.
Gathegi plays Darwin in First Class, a relatively new character, even in the comic books — Darwin first appeared in the February 2006 issue of X-Men: Deadly Genesis #2. Darwin's power is reactive adaptation, which means that "whatever environment he's in, in order to survive he will mutate," Gathegi explained in an interview with IGN. Gathegi added that Darwin is also "the coolest one."
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. 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.
After appearing in two Twilight movies, Gathegi says that stepping into a X-Men movie is "a lot of pressure," since the first Twilight movie "wasn't really a massive movie before it was released" and First Class is technically "the fifth installment of the X-Men franchise." Gathegi admitted that there's a difference between the two fanbases.
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.
Gathegi says he would "absolutely" return for a First Class sequel, should the movie prove to be a success. Gathegi thinks it will.
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. 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.
Next Showing: X-Men: First Class opens June 3