When
Alice Eve entered talks for the substantial Emma Frost role in the soon to be shooting
X-Men: First Class and we subsequently heard no denials, nor any word of other thesps in the running - we just kinda assumed she had won the gig. I mean it's been over six weeks since the announcement - so she must have still been in contention until recently otherwise why would Eves' reps or Fox let us carry on the charade of reporting her attachment?
Deadline say Eve was never officially on board and that
Matthew Vaughn has just signed up
January Jones, she of
Mad Men fame. Reports that the Frost part is basically an older student who comes between Xavier and Lehnsherr can probably be tripled now as Jones is 32 (Eve was 28) - and her age is smack right in the middle of
James McAvoy's (31) and
Michael Fassbender's (33)
. I like Jones, she's got a look from a different era of actresses'. The look of a Woody Allen lead from the 70's, or a Michelangelo Antonioni actress from the decade previous. She may not be as likeable as Eve's big smile and big-breasted blonde with a heart but I was worried Eve wouldn't be able to play the bitchy side of Frost. She could do the charm and the seducing but could she be the damn right vindictive character she really is? There's another big casting Vaughn has knocked off the checklist today also as he has seemingly found his Storm. We think, anyway... Mike Fleming sent the comic book websphere into a state of shock earlier by announcing
Zoe Kravitz, son of rocker legend Lenny, had been cast as Angel.
But there's no need to dispare because it's obvious her character won't be the feathered hero played by
Ben Foster in
X-Men 3: The Last Stand and the X-hero who dates back to the original X-Men team as a white male - has not had a gender change. Instead she's more likely to be
Angel Salvadore - aka Tempest - created just ten years ago by Grant Morrison and Ethan Van Schiver - she has abilities akin to the a common housefly.
And yet, Tempest basically means
'violent windstorm' right? So after a few swings and round-a-bouts, she is probably playing Storm herself, right? Who thinks
Matthew Vaughn is playing tricks on us via Fleming (I'm still 50/50 as to whether
Lucas Till is actually playing Cyclops and not his brother Havok). Kravitz has only been acting three years and has had bit parts in
numerous amounts of Hollywood movies, and she would have been shooting
Mad Max: Fury Road right now if that project hadn't been delayed.
More additions: The kid from Son of Rambow (
Bill Milner) will play an even younger Magneto in presumably Auschwitz flashbacks,
Morgan Lilly will play an even younger Mystique (
Jennifer Lawrence has the twenty something version locked down) I've updated
the cast a few times this week so I won't do it here, other than to say it's getting rather large and substantial. And the rate of additions that Vaughn is adding right now, we could have an epic sized cast by Monday (Fleming says Monday production begins, though we heard shooting isn't set until September 6th).