Before cinematic universes and serialized storytelling became commonplace, Bryan Singer was bringing superheroes to the masses through the X-Men franchise. Starting back in 2000, the X-Men franchise is still going strong, although there have been some peaks and valleys. One of those valleys is 2016's Apocalypse, and it turns out that actor Oscar Isaac wasn't happy on set.
Oscar Isaac played the titular villain of X-Men: Apocalypse, joining another massive popular franchise after debuting as Poe Dameron in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The film wasn't exactly a critical darling, and Isaac was especially miserable while filming-- mostly because of Apocalypse's cumbersome costume. As he tells it,
Apocalypse, that was excruciating. I didn't know when I said yes that that was what was going to be happening. That I was going to be encased in glue and latex and in a 40-pound suit that I had to wear a cooling mechanism at all times. I couldn't really move my head ever.
Well, this doesn't sound like fun. While working on film sets often includes crazy hours and uncomfortability, Oscar Isaac's costume for X-Men: Apocalypse sounds like something else, as it prevented the actor from being able to move or even just move his head. I guess the all-powerful mutant wasn't quite as strong as we thought.
Oscar Isaac has been open about the clunkiness of Apocalypse's costume before, and how it would make noise any time the actor moved or gestured in a scene. But now that the movie has been out for a few years, it seems he's able to be more open about the downsides of playing an X-Men villain. Because while he's not the only actor who had an uncomfortable costume, Isaac's takes the cake.
In his same conversation with GQ, Oscar Isaac revealed how isolating the suit actually was while filming X-Men: Apocalypse. Without being able to move his head or sit comfortably, Isaac mostly kept to himself while filming. He said,
I was like, 'Oh, I get to work with these great actors that I like so much,' but I couldn't even see them because I couldn't move my head. And I had to sit on a specially designed saddle, because that's the only thing I could really sit on, and I would be rolled into a cooling tent in-between takes. And so I just wouldn't ever talk to anybody, and I would just kinda be sitting and I couldn't really move, and like sweating inside the mask and the helmet.
Poor Poe! While being a villain in a comic book movie is a prime gig for most actors, Oscar Isaac's time acting as Apocalypse sounds far from idyllic. His extensive makeup also took hours to remove, so overall it looks like Isaac was really weighed down by outside influences while working on the last X-Men movie.
Hopefully those involved with Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants are having a better experience. Those blockbusters will be released on June 7th 2019 and August 2nd 2019. In the meantime, check out our 2019 release list to plan your trips to the movies in the New Year.
