Yahoo Movies The Gifted cast preview "street level" X-Men spin-off
The X-Men screen franchise expands tonight, adding new FOX series The Gifted to its ranks.
Set in a universe where Xavier's school has "been dismantled" and mutants have gone underground, The Gifted sees persecution of those with powers at an all-time high.
"Our universe is quite unique," Jamie Chung – who plays teleporting mutant Blink – tells Digital Spy. "The X-Men have been dismantled, as well as the Brotherhood, so mutants aren't banding together to save the world, we're banding together to survive."
"It's a branch of this franchise, and this mutant mythology, that I don't think fans have ever experienced before," adds Blair Redford, cast as the formidable John Proudstar / Thunderbird. "It's going to be a new take, and a perspective on it that the fans are going to really enjoy."
Bringing to life Marcos Diaz / Eclipse – a character created especially for the series – Sean Teale says that The Gifted will "honour" the established X-Men mythos, while providing a "street-level view" of the universe.
"It's more about ordinary people," Teale explains. "They don't fly in the X-Jet, and they don't don suits."
Instead, The Gifted follows a family who go on the run from government forces after discovering their children have mutant abilities. Prior to this, father Reed (Stephen Moyer) had worked as a district attorney, prosecuting mutants – only for the fate of his son and daughter to transform his life.
"He's been doing this job for 20 years and suddenly he has to turn his back on everything," Moyer reveals. "From being in this beautiful house, with a beautiful car, beautiful kids in a private school... now they're literally subterranean, living a hand-to-mouth existence."
So how, exactly, does this new series fit into the notoriously complicated X-Men timeline? Chung suggests that The Gifted takes place in "a different reality" to the films (in which her character Blink was previously portrayed by Fan Bingbing). However, Natalie Alyn Lind, playing fugitive daughter Lauren Strucker, says it's more complicated than that.
"It's hard to put our show in a timeline, because the X-Men timeline's so sketchy. It is its own thing, but it does happen in the timeline... and it's cool that we had Bryan Singer attached to it, because he understands that timeline better than anybody."
Yes, Singer – director of the first two X-Men movies, plus Days of Future Past and Apocalypse – has helmed the pilot for The Gifted, after a delay to his Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody left him with a gap in his schedule.
"We all know he's one of the OGs of this whole thing – he brought it to life," Redford says. "When we got him that first time at the table read, we started to get a sense of his leadership, and his grasp of this material.
"That's our sure thing on this show: we have good people helming it, good people steering the ship, from producers to the creator [Burn Notice's Matt Nix] to having Bryan attached."
"I'd heard many stories from my wife about what it was like to work with him," says Moyer, who is, of course, married to X-Men actress Anna Paquin. "She is a big fan of Bryan, and he of her, so I'd met him a few times but I'd never got to work with him.
"He has this encyclopaedic knowledge of the X-universe, so you can ask him anything. Every single minutiae had a reason for being… it's extraordinary to be around."
The Gifted begins tonight at 9/8c on FOX. The series comes to FOX UK on Sunday, October 8 at 9pm.
Want up-to-the-minute entertainment news and features? Just hit 'Like' on our Digital Spy Facebook page and 'Follow' on our @digitalspy Twitter account and you're all set.
You Might Also Like
