Oscar Isaac Says X-Men: Apocalypse Villain Will Be Practical Effects

In an age where out-of-this-world characters are realized by increasingly out-of-this-world special effects, it is refreshing to hear whenever filmmakers actually turn to the more earthly (and long-lasting) appeal of make-up, prosthetics, and in-camera tricks, if even partially.

That appears to be the direction taken by Bryan Singer for X-Men: Apocalypse and its titular big bad ancient mutant. While speaking with Yahoo!, star Oscar Isaac indeed confirmed that Apocalypse will be at least a mixture of practical effects and some CGI enhancement, and that he was on his way to do face sculpting tests.

“It’ll be a mix of [practical and digital effects],” Isaac said. “I haven’t had a script, so I haven’t had a chance to look through the script and see what the exact requirements are, but I think it’ll be a mixture of physical, aided with some robotic technology.”

Isaac later added, “After we finish here, I’m heading to do a head cast [for X-Men: Apocalypse], which they do often. You spend three to four hours with them putting plaster all over your head, and they get a sense of what your face is like, and what shape your head is, so they can start figuring out the costume and the make-up and all that stuff, which is pretty fun.”

It sounds like when En Sabah Nur rises that you’ll actually be able to see Isaac’s full performance underneath his alien visage. If you’ve read our thoughts on A Most Violent Year, this is only a good thing.

X-Men: Apocalypse stars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac, Nicholas Hoult, and (probably) Hugh Jackman. The film opens on May 27, 2016, but you can read right now everything we know about the movie.