6. She Auditioned For X-Men With Joss Whedon's Help
Whatever you think of Joss Whedon (and there's surely many reasons to go off him, no matter how big a Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan you are), he's a pretty good pal. Along with giving Glau her first acting job with that small role in Angel, she also enlisted her mentor's help in auditioning for a role he was intimately acquainted with: Kitty Pryde, the X-Man with the ability to walk through walls who appeared properly in The Last Stand. Glau had quite an in with Whedon, too, since in between movie and TV work he had written the comic book storyline the third X-Men film was loosely based on. Gifted told the story of a mutant with the ability to cure his fellow super-beings, with Whedon electing to bring back Kitty Pryde as a main character for the first time in decades. Pryde was a big part of the X-Men when he was reading it as a kid, and it's been said that the character inspired the atypically strong female roles he's penned in his work ever since. So, duh, if you were Summer Glau and you were up for the role of Kitty Pryde, you'd go to the guy who knew her best. Unfortunately it wasn't quite enough, since the part went to Ellen Page instead, but considering what a mess The Last Stand ended up being...
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
