The Fox X-Men franchise may be headed for a reboot before mutants join the MCU, but its last installment, New Mutants will come first. The movie is finally coming to theaters in April after a two-year delay from its initial release date, although the wait has been especially long for Maisie Williams, who was working with director Josh Boone a year and a half before the movie even got a green light.
The previously announced reshoots, which were expected to shift the movie into an R-rating, never happened, and the release will now be the director’s original vision. However, instead of kicking off a New Mutants trilogy and becoming a big influence on the future of the X-Men franchise, New Mutants will instead be the final chapter of Fox’s X-Men.
Back in August 2017, Screen Rant visited the New Mutants set and sat down with Maisie Williams, who portrays Rahne Sinclair, AKA Wolfsbane, to chat about her role in the film.
So have you and Sophie compared notes on playing X-Men?
No, not really… Actually yeah, kind of a little bit. I called her when this was sort of coming about and was chatting to her about potentially signing up for something that’s long-term again and just ask her more questions about it and I always knew I wanted to do something big and long run after the show, but it’s come quite soon, so yeah, just had a lot of questions since she’d already made the leap
You are the seventh Game of Thrones actor now to go Marvel.
Marvel is huge.
So is the cast of Game of Thrones. I’m really curious specifically with Wolfsbane how your transformation plays out. Can you talk about whatever prosthetics are costumes you had to suit up in?
We had like 3 weeks before shooting to figure that out, during which with a lot of prosthetics meetings and we tried on fingernails and teeth and facial hair and fur and bodysuits and all sorts of crazy stuff and they ultimately decided that they’re going to do most of it in post, but, the reason why I went into all of that is because it was really interesting to see how I feel and how it would look before it, you know, it’ll look slightly different, but it’ll be nice to see what I’m going to be like, you know once she changed. Rahne really does struggle with her transformation, so just to stand and look in the mirror like I’m sure rain would have done that multiple times, and yeah, so it’s nice to have felt that before, just having [motion capture] dots. When we shoot I have the fingernails and I have teeth and I have dots. So they can put just the fur in because we were struggling to make the little pieces look like fur, it was just like hair so that was important.
Does your personality stay with the character when the character is in dog form? Or is it more animalistic?
She’s far more animalistic. I feel like Rahne, even when she’s Rahne and she’s not Wolfsbane, always has a heightened sense of hearing and smell, so she’s kind of the eyes and ears of the hospital and she doesn’t play a very big part in the dynamic of the group, but I think she plays a very big role in the hospital I’d say. Well, she maybe doesn’t play a role at all, but she knows what’s going on all the time. So I think she’s very much an introvert, but I think she’s got her own little world but she’s built in there and her own little fun that she makes and she doesn’t really interact with the others all that much, or maybe she tries to, but they’re not very interested in what she has to say. So it’s interesting that in the movie when she does become wolfsbane and they start to realize that her powers can be helpful and they don’t just think she’s so silly.
In the comics she actually almost prefers being in wolf mode as opposed to human, is that the case with your character?
Yeah, I think for so long Rahne, the backstory of Rahne, simply in the film, I’m not that familiar with the comics either, which I’m sure not ashamed about, so I don’t know why I made that face, but we wanted the backstory I think she felt quite repressed, she’s very ashamed of her powers and I think now that she’s here, where actually learning to use her powers is a good thing and she’s kind of got her powers under control unlike the others and just kind of got a temper under control so she much prefers it. No one really talks to her much anyway and she can get around a lot quicker being a wolf, so, yeah, I think she’s kind of very at peace when she is a wolf, but she still does have like that tug of war inside about her religious upbringing and her new life.
Josh mentioned that was very much him, his upbringing, too, so do you feel like he maybe understands the character on a level that somebody might not?
Yeah, I really had no idea what that would be like to leave a religion or to be brought up so strictly and then to one day completely change your mind. I’ve never really delved into it I’ve never been religious so I always have just brushed it off and then talking to Josh about his past and reading the script gave me a lot of confidence that this is written from a very honest perspective. So that really helped me because sometimes you get people writing about stuff they don’t know anything about, which by the way is completely fine, but then it does mean for you as an actor you need to then go in and put reality to it, so it was really nice knowing that it was already coming from a place of truth and then I could just go in and do my bit and create the introvert Rahne.
We’ve heard a lot of cinematic references being brought Up like Lost Boys And Dream Warriors, were you given Any specific cinematic references, maybe movie werewolf movies even, kind of getting out of this character?
No, Josh has been really good, though, throughout the whole process. I came into this, like, not officially, but I knew about this through Josh quite early on. So throughout the whole he sent me a lot of the previous and storyboards and he’s very much, he sent us some of the score, so I think that way It really helped me get a grasp what kind of film or trying to make, but in terms of like actual references, I’m sure he did, but that’s not really the way my brain works
What’s been the process with the accent?
I did a Scottish accent I did more of an Aberdeen Accents in a film that I did a few years ago, so I’d already been a little bit, but my acting coach from Game of Thrones when I was a child when I was a lot younger, she is Scottish, so I just asked her we went back and forth in the phone a few times, but then like this was a lot more bigger a lot more lines I use just the lady that I used on Game of Thrones and what really helpful was she has an app so you can do it when you’re away and you can do it on your own, that’s really been helpful because kind of embarrassing doing in front of someone else because when you do mess up you know it’s bad and they definitely know it’s bad, so it’s quite fun doing it on your own and, yeah, I find it okay. I really like doing accents because I hate my voice, I think it’s really bad it’s the most cringe-worthy voice ever, so I find it really helpful to create a new person as well because while Rahne’s really different to the kids that played before anyway, but off the back of Game of Thrones I find myself playing the same girl not over and over again, but little bit, so it’s nice to do an accent because then you feel like a new person.
I’m curious what it’s like to star in a basically female-centric superhero and horror movie.
Yeah, it’s pretty cool. because the girls were they hold the story together. they’ve all got, it kind of honestly portrays women, but then also has a great, like, just a great fire in all of them, they’ve all got very different pasts and they all come together kind of like elbowing each other, like I’m the most fucked-up, a little bit. But then to watch these three young women start working together is beautiful and that’s kind of the way it is in life, I feel like women don’t like talking about the fact that sometimes women are… a little bitchy, and we like to deny that, but I think it’s cool at this that it is quite honestly portrayed and then you see these two girls actually, the reason why they’re so horrible to each other is because they’re actually so similar and I found that multiple times going who does industry going through school and sisters and you, like, butt horns because I oh my God they’re so this so this so that, but it really boils down to be exactly the same and that’s why it’s so difficult, so it’s kind of beautiful and it’s great having all five of his characters male and female and there’s something quite honest about seeing superheroes figuring out how to be superheroes. Which is something you never really get to see unless it’s like a 20-minute flashback at the beginning of the movie, so it’s nice to see the struggles of growing up and then going up like being a superhero. A mutant.
There’s fantastical elements to this and you’re also Game of Thrones, but Game of Thrones is in its own sort of pseudo-historical universe and this is contemporary, can you talk about set a translating fantasy into contemporary
It’s bizarre and it’s only a couple of lines in the story that I really felt like that because you still could really take yourself out of reality and put yourself into this hospital, so there’s a few times with a sort of reference the outside world and they really get to hang out and be normal teenagers and they’re not, you know, having superpowers or whatever, and in those moments that it really is bizarre because you’re you’re getting yourself into this character and into this world and into this hospital and all of a sudden you just take it right back out of it because these are just normal teenagers in like present-day just like me. So yeah, it is bizarre bouncing between the two, but that’s kind of what I do. I don’t try to remember that throughout the whole bit of it because there are times, well it’s quite nice that they actually segregate from the world because they are quite different and to try and ground it within reality like right now like within a normal friendship group at a high school would be a lot different I think but the fact that they are in his hospital and yeah they’re allowed to feel kind of like outsiders makes it a lot easier to immerse yourself in this world.
It’s also interesting that they’re all dangerous in their own way and that’s why they’re here and they’re not just dangerous to themselves but dangerous to people around them. Does that create like a dynamic within the movie that’s fun to play with?
Definitely, and I think there’s very much an insecurity about knowing really what each other are capable of. There’s, like, your normal arguments, but as soon as you got mutants involves the stakes are so much higher. It’s great fun being part of those scenes, but for Dr. Reyes that’s, like, you hate to have to look after five teenagers and you got five teenagers that can kill each other.
You got the hormones raging And you got the ability to blow up.
Right, it kind of falls out the way you would expect but it’s great fun because there’s so much you can draw on from real life, but then you have these really cool other aspects like you’ve seen shooting right now, I was just watching as Sam stood there with flashing orange lights, like, blasting, like it’s so cool. So you’re acting like a normal group of 5 and then all of the sudden one of them has, like, got a sword, [laughs] yeah, it’s nice.
- New Mutants Release Date: 2020-08-28
