For most of 2015, fans were under the impression Andre Tricoteux was playing Colossus in Deadpool, but that’s no longer the case. It was revealed today that the steel-skinned mutant will now be voiced and partly played in motion capture by Serbian actor Stefan Kapicic. Last minute replacements like these don’t often happen, and in Kapicic’s case, he went through a hectic audition process to join the 2016 blockbuster after much of it had already been completed.
Having only completed his Colossus performance earlier this month, Kapicic explained to EW how Deadpool’s top-secret nature made it so he didn’t know what he was auditioning for at first, only figuring it out after multiple rounds of reads. Kapicic elaborated:
I ended up with 120 takes on my third call of auditions. I worked at Fox studios with [director] Tim Miller for the last part of the audition. The session was supposed to be for four hours, but we got inspired and creative, so it continued for eight more hours. After we were done, I flew the 14 hour flight back to Montenegro and drove straight to the theatre to perform Romeo and Juliet. I was reeling with excitement from that last week in L.A., but I couldn’t tell anyone about Colossus!
It wasn’t mentioned in the article why Colossus was recast, but judging by Kapicic’s comments, it sounds like he had a great time during reshoots with Ryan Reynolds, director Tim Miller, and the rest of the cast and crew. In terms of Kapicic steeled up as the longtime X-Men member, he looks mostly the same as Tricoteux, aside from being slightly bulkier. Take a gander at the image below to judge for yourself.
Beyond his physical presence, Kapicic mentioned it helped that his Serbian accent closely matched what Miller had in mind for Piotr Rasputin’s way of speaking, making this Colossus, as the actor put it, the "most authentic to the original idea of the comic book character." Kapicic also mentioned many times during the interview that he is not just a big Deadpool fan, but also a longtime comic book fan since his grandfather bought him an X-Men comic book when he was six-years-old.
Outside of his work in Serbia and Croatia, Kapicic has appeared in U.S. TV shows like 24, Numb3rs, and The Event. Excluding Tricoteux, Kapicic is the second actor to play Colossus in live action, following Daniel Cudmore, who played the character in X2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand, and X-Men: Days of Future Past. As for Colossus’ role in the movie, he’ll work alongside Negasonic Teenage Warhead, though how he specifically gets drawn into the Merc with a Mouth’s crazy antics remains a mystery.
Deadpool hits theaters on February 12, 2016.
