by Paul Fischer
by
Paul Fischer
With Magneto (Ian McKellan) captured and jailed at the
end of X-Men,
it's up to his shape changing partner Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos)
to engineer his freedom and restart the crusade to put humanity in its
proper, subservient place. Maybe in X3, for humans are striking back
in X-Men United, led by Presidential advisor William Stryker. In the
middle
of the power play between mutants good and bad, and those pesky humans
is a new and also blue teleporter, code named Nightcrawler (Alan
Cumming).
CrankyCritic: When you shape-change in this movie,
do the actors you're imitating ever come watch how you walk so they can
do it?
Romijn-Stamos: It's interesting. I never watch how they do it.
I feel the other actors should come to me and ask me stuff. The only person
that did was Hugh in the first movie during the Mystique/Wolverine fight,
when it was Wolverine versus Wolverine. He asked me if he could blow a
kiss during the fight and I thought that was great.
Stamos, head to toe in blue makeup
and prosthetics, was joined in the daily agony of the makeup chair by
a "new" mutant, Alan
Cumming as Nightcrawler.
Romijn-Stamos: I really went through it on the first one and I
complained a lot. I was so happy that they shaved three hours off of it
this time. Alan didn't know what he was in for so he had it much worse.
He was like me on the first one.
Alan Cumming: Like a novice nun. It was so great to have someone
there who knew. Like "I'm blue, too!"
Romijn-Stamos: We have a secret blue club and a secret blue language
CrankyCritic: Alan, since you didn't know the comics
- like just about everyone involved from the first movie - tell us your
first impressions of the Nightcrawler character.
Alan Cumming: Kind of horror. The first time I did it it took 8
or 10 hours to get my face done. And also we went through various tests
ad shades of blue and then the tattoos became a component. The first time
I saw it I thought oh yuck because I thought it was too dark and I didn't
feel I'd be able to communicate anything with the audience. I thought
it was going to be such a mask that why did they bother hiring me? Anyone
can wear a mask.
Romijn-Stamos: That's how I felt
Alan Cumming: Then you kind of hone it. In a way it was good because
the first two weeks I was on my own doing the opening sequence, when I
open the can of whupass -- that's my new favorite phrase -- and in a way
you're much more concerned with the wire and hitting the mark and all
that. When I got used to it , I could see how I could act a little more.
CrankyCritic: But acting in a wire rig?
Alan Cumming: I tell you there's not much joy. There's chafing
involved. There's so many perils to wearing a harness. Acting is the least
of your worries when you've got a huge scary mountaineering style straps
near your groin. And it's scary going up so high. You practice with a
stunt man first and it's really nice when the stunt man says 'you're doing
well' -- it's like a big brother telling you that you're good at
a sport that you're not really good at.
Romijn-Stamos: Well that's hard. I'm covered in the silicone and my face is frozen. It's like the ultimate botox without injection. You don't know if you're actually conveying what you're trying to convey ‘cuz you can't furrow your brow.
Alan
Cumming: I've got those tattoo things that are put on with those things
you decorate cakes with. So it was just the blueness to deal with and
the fact that you can't really see through the contact lenses. I didn't
have any physical things between me and the camera but it was still quite
daunting to think "I'm feeling sad right now. I wonder if anyone
knows?"
And the teeth
Alan Cumming: The teeth as well. It's real hard to speak with the
teeth in your mouth and I had snarling tops and bottoms as well. I mastered
not sounding like a sibilant drag queen with the tops in. I would always
have less teeth in my mouth when I talked then when I was snarling. There
was a heavy exchange of dentures.
And the accent
Alan Cumming: That was not a problem. The problem was speaking
in German. Hail Mary in German. It's ok speaking in an accent but speaking
the language -- they asked if I wanted to go to Germany for the German
premiere and I said no. That's like going into the lion's den.
CrankyCritic: Mystique spends a significant amount of time tromping
through outdoor wilderness, meaning a lot of snow. Despite the prosthetics,
you're basically naked. Must've been tough.
Romijn-Stamos: That was a long day. That was the worst and, of
course, it was my very last day on the movie. The last day always has
to be the hardest.
Alan Cumming: The last day they save for your big stunts. The things
you might complain about or die in so they can still finish the film if
you die.
Romijn-Stamos: I thought I might die that day. We were up in the
mountains. Snowing. Freezing cold. They put potato flakes on top of the
snow to try and save my feet because I was barefoot. The potato flakes
literally turned to glue on the soles of my feet. I had these big glue
shoes and they'd rush me back to the helicopter, where they'd keep me
warm between takes, and Ian McKellan would pick the glue off the bottom
of my feet.
Alan Cumming: A Knight of the Realm...
Romijn-Stamos: It was the worst. Ian pulling glue off my feet.
And it was painful
CrankyCritic: And you spend most of your screen time as Magneto's
right arm. What did the young actor take away from the world renowned
Brit?
Romijn-Stamos: Ian's really funny. He was always trying to get
his cape right. He's one of those guys that's really Method and always
has to know what his motivation is and what he's talking about. On a movie
like this, where the script is constantly changing… I remember one
part where I'm in Stryker's lair doing all the computer stuff, and they
come bursting in. He's supposed to run in and say, "Have you found
it?" He kept saying, "I don't know what IT is. What is it?"
We asked him to please, just say it, because it was going to take another
half hour for them to explain it. Just say it and don't worry about it.
CrankyCritic: Does being covered by all that makeup protect your
"civilian identities" when you walk by a comic book store?
Romijn-Stamos: Oh they come out of the woodwork. It's amazing.
And they get the information to you. Once you start working on these movies
you know everything about these characters.
Alan Cumming: It's like the French Resistance. You're in for the
long haul. People bring you things. Last week I was doing a book tour
in London and all of a sudden there were all these Marvel comics with
my face on them to be signed.
Alan Cumming: I find that with things that you do that people are
obsessed by; it's not that you're scared of them cuz sometimes you can
be. It's more like if you're so obsessed by this I don't want to let you
down. I don't want to spoil your expectations. I'd be a bit nervous of
that.
CrankyCritic: So what is it really like moving from serious drama
to comic book action?
Alan Cumming: I think it's a good thing. It makes you a better
actor if you mix and match. You can always mix and match and bring one
kind of thing into another. If you do the same kind of thing all the time
you're limiting yourself.
Of course in most big action spectacles, character comes second but I
think what works about this film is that the characters are so strongly
defined and delineated.
Romijn-Stamos: They get to open a can of whupass but they also
have time to do meaningful stuff
Alan Cumming: They have feelings, too. I used to do standup comedy
and I always felt that, when I did Hamlet, that my Hamlet was better because
I understood about relating to the audience in the soliloquies. In a way
working in the theater and being used to movement and dance stuff, that
helped me with Nightcrawler because I had the confidence to be quite bold
in terms of how he acts.
CrankyCritic: You worked with a circus trainer to develop Nightcrawler's
moves.
Alan Cumming: Yes, he's called Terry Notary and
used to work with Cirque du Soleil. He did the movement for Planet
of the Apes and stuff. When I would go for my makeup tests in the
months prior to shooting, I'd go up and work on movements with him. It
was great. Like being back at drama school. We worked on how he would
run and try to get an animal feel to him. A lot of subtle things to suggest
how he would move looking the way he does. I loved it. I'm quite physical
in my work so it's nice to work with someone who knows what he's doing.
CrankyCritic: Finally, lest we get too fanboy serious, Ms. Romijn-Stamos...
Rebecca Romijn-Stamos: Yes?
CrankyCritic: X2 is the second movie in which you had
a makeout scene in a bathroom stall, with Femme Fatale being the first.
Rebecca Romijn-Stamos: You're not the first person to
bring that up. It's going to go on my resume. The girl that makes out
in bathroom stalls. Hire me if you want a skanky makeout bathroom scene.
Romijn-Stamos will next be seen in Godsend, with Greg Kinnear and Robert De Niro, "about a couple who loses their child and the child gets cloned." Cumming has signed for a role as a theater owner in Joel Schumacher's adaptation of Broadway's The Phantom of the Opera