MCU Fantastic Four: 10 Actors Who Could Play Reed Richards

Having already appeared within the Fantastic Four world back in 2005 - playing one of Doctor Doom's lackeys - Hamish Linklater’s consideration for playing Reed Richards shows just how far the multifaceted actor has come since. The 46-year-old’s evolution is backed up by an impressive catalogue featuring a host of stylistically differing projects, with no role the same as the next or previous. Armed with a deep, vocal gravitas and calming on-screen aura, Linklater could bring a much-needed emotional variability to Reed Richards that has not yet been seen on-screen.

Reed’s genius intellect makes it difficult for himself to open up to those who confide within his inner circle, and for such a complex character, an able actor is needed to personify this; a bracket which Hamish could certainly fall into. With this in mind, the American’s portrayal of Father Paul within Netflix’s Midnight Mass conveyed a lone, laboured preacher trapped in an ever-swaying pendulum of morality. Like that of Richards, Linklater’s miracle worker is stuck in his ways, and while he works in healing and redeeming those within his community, the ethics of his endeavours are ill-judged.

Mister Fantastic is not your typical run-of-the-mill superhero, and the once Legion mainstay can bring an equilibrium of maturity mixed with the emotional complexity that the source material recommends. Linklater bears an uncanny resemblance to Krasinski, but the former may just possess that X factor that his fellow Massachusetts native lacks.