Actors, they’re just like you and I. We all have expectations when we get into something. We all just sign on to multimillion-dollar superhero blockbusters hoping to have a fun time with interesting co-workers. And sometimes, what we wind up with instead is being trapped in a look akin to Ivan Ooze from Power Rangers: The Movie. Relatable, right?
Speaking to GQ as part of a retrospective of all his roles, the ever-relatable Oscar Isaac recounted his time working on the most recent X-Men film release…and didn’t exactly mince words when it came to how he really felt about being transformed into the film’s titular villain:
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, latex and a 18kg suit — that I had to wear a cooling mechanism at all times. I couldn’t move my head, ever.
You’d think at some point someone might have actually shown Isaac a picture of what Apocalypse looked like, but hey! First time for everything, including working with full body makeup and prosthetics. But Isaac had been hoping that it was just going to be a fun time working with interesting actors. Instead, he got to not do that and be encased in sweaty latex for hours:
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 was just gonna be sitting and I couldn’t really move, and like, sweating inside the mask and the helmet.
Poor guy sounds miserable! Which, to be fair, is most people’s reaction to X-Men: Apocalypse anyway. But really, Isaac saved his best comment for last:
And then getting it off was the worst part, because they just had to kind of scrape it off for hours and hours. So, that was X-Men: Apocalypse.
Ouch. Given all he went through to be turned into the mighty mutant, honestly, that’s a reasonable assessment.
[h/t CBR]