The rebooted X-Men continuity has afforded new actors many opportunities to step into firmly established and iconic roles. One incredibly notable example is Kodi Smit-McPhee, and his brand new take on Kurt Wagner -- known in the Munich Circus as The Incredible Nightcrawler. X-Men: Apocalypse gave us a good introduction to the young actor's Nightcrawler, but how does he plan on developing the character further? For Kodi Smit-McPhee, it's all about toughening him up. The actor explained:
I obviously displayed him as shy, loving, compassionate, grounded and humble. That would be more abundant in his younger age. If the next movie was to go ahead into the '90s, like they've been doing with the continuity, I feel like I could play him a little tougher, like he's been through a little more battles.
While speaking with THR about the future of his version of Nightcrawler, Kodi Smit-McPhee explained that he wants to harden the character in the next movie. Since the next X-Men film will fast forward the continuity one decade into the future to the 1990s, Nightcrawler will have seen far more combat, and lived through a far greater number of adventures under the guidance of Charles Xavier. This affords the young actor ample opportunity to present audiences with a somewhat more grizzled version of the teleporting superhero, while maintaining the loveable nature at his core. Nightcrawler has long existed as a fan favorite character (on the screen as well as on the page) so we have a feeling that he will still deliver a ton of laughs and thrills in the future.
We've already seen a version of this Nightcrawler before, and we absolutely loved it. Kodi Smit-McPhee based quite a bit of his Kurt Wagner on Alan Cummings' original version of the hero in X2: X-Men United. In the 2003 X-Men classic, Nightcrawler was depicted as an inherently peaceful character, but also incredibly capable in a combat situation. Although the X-Men timeline has changed quite a bit since 2003, it appears that the maturation of the blue-skinned X-Man will remain quite consistent with what we have seen before.
After all, the Nightcrawler White House sequence in X2 is still one of the best action sequences in comic book movie history. Check it out below:
One thing is certain: we are in for an insanely badass version of Nightcrawler in the very near future. We will bring you any and all relevant updates related to the future of the X-Men franchise as more information becomes available to us. X-Men: Apocalypse is currently available on Digital HD, DVD, and Blu-Ray.
