Kevin Bacon Describes His X-Men: First Class Role
Posted 01.19.11 by Ryan
Since it was confirmed that Kevin Bacon was set to play the villain in director Matthew Vaughn's upcoming X-Men prequel, X-Men: First Class, the actor hasn't spoken out about the project. A new interview with Moviefone changes that, with Bacon explaining how he ended up playing X-Men villain Sebastian Shaw.
I was a big fan of Kick-Ass and someone told me I should go read the script and meet with Matthew Vaughn and like that, I was in X-Men. I liked the script, thought it was such a fresh look at the franchise, but also the comic book movies in general and certainly it's a great character. He's definitely the character I was interested in playing.
While Bacon says Shaw will not have the Victorian look the character has in the comic books ("We decided pretty early on that that was not going to translate to film," the actor admitted), but will maintain the character's origins.
You don't see much [of his backstory] in the movie, but he's kind of a self-made man. He lost his father as a young man, made his first million by the time he was 30 and first billion by time he was 40. He's a very powerful billionaire and also, as it turns out, a mutant. He's the leader of the Hellfire Club, which is a nightclub for the rich and extremely powerful. And he has a plot to take over the world, so that's really fun. He's incredibly good at manipulating people and at taking whatever kind of energy or ability they have and using it to his advantage, like if he's talking to a German, he's fluent in German. He's very charming and able to get whatever he wants.
Bacon says his character "has an element" of a '60s James Bond vibe, and revealed that the "backdrop [of the movie] is the Cuban Missile Crisis." While admitting he couldn't reveal much of the visual element of the movie, Bacon said the best part of the prequel will be watching the team of mutants come together.
When you see them become what we know of as the X-Men, to me, that's really cool. The visual stuff, I can't say, until I've seen the effects. But from a plot standpoint, watching the creation of that kind of elite squad and yet they're all in this college dorm room kind of atmosphere, where there's romances and drunken parties and people become friends and then they have a falling out. I think all that stuff is going to be really cool. All of these movies deliver something other than just another airplane blowing up because there's interesting stuff going on between the characters.
Bacon revealed that he is signed for more X-Men movies, but said "whether or not I end up in any more remains to be seen." He also admitted to having a large scene with Michael Fassbender, who plays Magneto in the movie.
X-Men: First Class opens June 3 and is, according to First Class actor Edi Gathegi, undergoing reshoots. A supposedly official image of some of the cast was released online this week, though Bacon was not amongst the characters depicted.