First look at Kodi Smit-McPhee as Nightcrawler in X-MEN: APOCALYPSE

BAMF! Popping up out of nowhere like, well, like a blue skinned mutant with instant teleportation powers, director Bryan Singer has unveiled our first look at young actor Kodi Smit-McPhee in costume as Nightcrawler in the upcoming 1980’s set X-Men: Apocalypse. And then that Instagram post was removed for some mysterious reason. But not before it was tweeted out by the official @XmenMovies Twitter account. Which was then also removed. Weird.

Luckily it looks like Smit-McPhee missed that secrecy memo though, because he still has the pic up on his personal Instagram page:

Well, that’s very blue. Which is of course a good thing. Smit-McPhee is wearing plain 80’s clothes (and hair) instead of an official costume here, but I’m guessing we’ll see that closer to the release of the movie.

This is of course not the first time that Nightcrawler has appeared on-screen, as he was famously played by Alan Cumming in both X2 and X3. Despite the timeline rearranging events of X-Men: Days of Future Past essentially giving Smit-McPhee a blank slate to work with, there’s no denying that Cumming did a superb job of portraying the conflicted Kurt Wagner (and of course, there was DAT INTRO SCENE!), so the young actor will have some serious two-toed shoes to fill. Speaking to SuperheroHype, the young Dawn of the Planet of the Apes star revealed that he recognizes this fact, but doesn’t let what came before totally influence his performance.

“I don’t try to avoid it, and I don’t try to keep it in mind. I just let things come naturally. Because it is the Marvel Universe and X-Men and there are a lot of people expecting a lot of things, I did a huge amount of research on anyone who has portrayed it and even in the comics and the cartoons and live action. I just followed Nightcrawler’s story. I feel very honored and grateful to be expressing that now. I can’t wait.”

Nightcrawler has always been a very popular character, and with his father Azazel being a major baddie in X-Men: First Class, many thought that his blue-skinned offspring would be showing up in X-Men: Days of Future Past. That of course didn’t happen, and it looks like the already big cast of mutants (especially blue ones, hey Beast?) may have been to blame for his absence.

“I think Bryan said that he thought that it just wasn’t the right time because there were already so many mutants in it and after reading the script now, I can see what they’re doing. They have the ability to bring these younger characters in now, so I think a lot of the people who know the traditional origins of where this came from will be very happy.”

Meanwhile writer/producer Simon Kinberg posted this on-set pic showing the film shooting a scene in a makeshift cinema playing this little movie you may have heard of before.

Day 1 of the Apocalypse…. Back to the 80s…. pic.twitter.com/0ecjnXX23l

— Simon Kinberg (@Kinberg) April 27, 2015

X-Men: Apocalypse is said to be the end-cap on a trilogy of films that started with the 60’s set First Class and the 70’s set Days of Future Past, and sees a number of other actors playing younger versions of popular franchise characters. Tye Sheridan will play a young Scott Summers aka Cyclops, Sophie Turner plays Jean Grey and Alexandra Shipp will be Ororo Munroe aka Storm. Another newcomers to the cast include Lana Condor as Jubilee, Ben Hardy as Warren Worthington aka Angel, Olivia Munn as Psylocke aka Nick’s unhealthy obsession and Oscar Isaac as titular all-powerful bad guy Apocalypse.

They will be joining the returning James McAvoy as Charles Xavier, Michael Fassbender as Magneto, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy aka Beast, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Evan Peters as Quicksilver, Rose Byrne as Moira McTaggert and Lucas Till as Havok. Lawrence has previously stated that this would the final time she plays the shapeshifting Mystique (gain a blue character, lose a blue character, I guess).

X-Men: Apocalypse is currently busy shooting and is scheduled for release on May 27, 2016.

 

Last Updated: April 28, 2015