Beast Enrols In X-Men: First Class

Skins and About A Boy star Nicholas Hoult cast as Beast. And will the new Banshee’s accent be as bad as the last one?

The original Beast (left) before he mutated further and went all blue and fuzzy (right). But which version will Hoult be playing in First Class?

He may not strike you as a young Kelsey Grammer, but Nicholas Hoult, star of About A Boy and the TV series Skins, has been cast as the young Beast in X-Men: First Class, the prequel movie about the early days of Professor Xavier’ School For Gifted Youngsters. Coming Soon has the scoop on the story.

It’s also not clear whether Hoult will be in full-body prosthetics to play the later furry version of the Beast (as played by Grammer in X-Men: The Last Stand) or if the story will stay true to the comics and have a human-looking Beast for his first appearances. Either way, Hoult seems slightly, um, slight to play the burly, Hobbit-footed mutant… But we trust director Matthew Vaughn to know what he’s up to. And Hoult does have beastly eyebrows. According to Empire, Hoult only became available for the role when filming on the new Mad Max film was postponed.

Coming Soon also “confirms” a story which was broken earlier by Latino Review, that relative unknown Caleb Landry Jones (he had a bit part in No Country For Old Men) has been cast as Banshee. Now, Banshee is Irish (very Oirish – in the comics he was not averse to a bit of “Toppa the mornin’ to ye”) whereas Jones is a Texan. Still, he can’t attempt a worse accent than Jeremy Ratchford in ’96 TV movie Generation X (see below – Banshee appears about a minute in and his accent is hilarious). Banshee was a mutant who had super-powered screaming abilities, which included a sonic blast. He could also fly at the speed of sound. He went on to become a headteacher in the X-Men spin-off comic Generation X alongside The White Queen (who’s also in the clip)

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