English actor Jason Flemyng has been cast as Azazel, the father of the teleporting mutant Nightcrawler, in Matthew Vaughn’s upcoming “X-Men: First Class” which is going in front of cameras in three weeks according to screenwriter Jane Goldman.
Flemyng is known for supporting roles in the Guy Ritchie films (which Vaughn produced) “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch,” and has appeared in every Vaughn film so far, “Layer Cake,” “Stardust,” and “Kick-Ass.”
“Matthew showed me my costume just the other day,” Flemyng told Empire at MovieCon in the U.K. where he first revealed his participation in the film. “Now I swore I’d never be in heavy make-up again, but this role is going to involve it. But at least they said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll add the tail in post’ I am Azazel, and I can teleport by waving my arms [gestures like a cross between a flamenco dancer and a Bollywood star].”
This character Azazel — a teleporting creature from another dimension — actually seems to reveal a lot about “X-Men: First Class,” as the character impregnated Mystique in the comics and she later gave birth to Nightcrawler. Since this shapeshifting character is played by a young Jennifer Lawrence, we can probably assume we won’t be seeing a teenage Nightcrawler (played by Alan Cumming in the original “X-Men” series) anytime soon. In fact, all this talk of potentially no Cyclops and Jean Grey is starting to make sense.
“X-Men: First Class” focuses on the early days of Professor X and Magneto and the mutants named so far were the ones always known as the eldest in the comics. Banshee is at least 40-something when introduced in the comics, Beast was always known as the oldest of the original “X-Men” clan and Havoc is the older brother of Cyclops (who won’t be played by Aaron Johnson, fyi). It’s very conceivable by this “X-Men” timeline that we won’t meet characters like Iceman, Angel, Cyclops and Jean Grey until the end of the picture and even then, they could easily be played by very young pre-pubescents or early teenagers and could be replaced later in the inevitable second film.
After all, three weeks until shooting and no major actors have been cast as Cyclops, Jean Grey, Iceman or Angel, four of the core original “X-Men”? That’s probably because they’re not going to be in the film in any major capacity other than what’s listed above and this jives with what we heard earlier in the year: that Cyclops and Jean Grey were not in the script (at least not as major characters). It’s all starting to make sense now and maybe the filmmakers thought this out more thoroughly than we had anticipated. “X-Men: First Class” stars James McAvoy (Professor X), Michael Fassbender (Magneto), Nicholas Hoult (Beast), Caleb Landry Jones (Phoenix), Alice Eve (Emma Frost), Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique), Edi Gathegi (Darwin), Kevin Bacon (possibly the villain Sebastian Shaw), Lucas Till (Havoc) and is scheduled to hit theaters June 3, 2011. Here are some early script details that sound more and more like they’re on the money.