The audition process to play a Marvel character has to be a grueling one. Franchises such as X-Men have a huge fan following and, if the wrong choice is made, people are going to speak up about it. In the case of Nicholas Hoult’s Beast audition, the actor was given this request:
The one odd thing I remember about the audition is Matthew Vaughn asked me to do a couple of takes in an American accent as you kind of saw the character. But then also do a take doing an impression of Stewie Griffin from Family Guy. I had watched a lot of Family Guy in my teen years growing up, so I was like, ‘OK, I think I've got a pretty good impression of Stewie Griffin lined up.’ And so I did a whole version of the take as Stewie Griffin and sent it off. So maybe that helped me get the part? I don't know.
Anyone else feel like Matthew Vaughn had already made his decision and was just messing with him? As Nicholas Hoult recalls to GQ about his X-Men: First Class audition, the director asked if he would read the scene in his best Stewie Griffin and, thankfully, the many hours of watching the Fox series came in handy. I mean… Vaughn must have had a method to his madness, right?
Could a request like that might have given the director a gauge of how the actor handles odd things being thrown at him suddenly? Either way, now we’d like to hear Nicholas Hoult’s life-altering impression and in the Beast prosthetics as well!
X-Men: First Class was a pivotal role for the actor, and he would reprise the role in three sequels that would be released over almost a decade. Nicholas Hoult had just hit his twenties when the franchise began, and the cast became a family – Hoult even dated his fellow blue co-star, Jennifer Lawrence, for four years during the experience. Apparently, it wasn’t that awkward after they broke up, and they continued making movies together as an on-screen couple.
The X-Men franchise ended last yeaer with the release of Dark Phoenix, which unfortunately was hit with tons of story shifts, reshoots and delays. The movie was a box office bomb for Fox just as the company was absorbed by Disney. The X-Men property will now enter a new era under the MCU, but Hoult has said he would totally reprise the role under the new management.
The last remnant of Fox’s X-Men franchise will come in the form of this summer’s The New Mutants, which was originally set to hit theaters in April before theaters closed and the release calendar was forced to shift. Josh Boone’s film was just given a new date on August 28 after months of questions about whether it would just be made available on Disney+.
As for Nicholas Hoult, he currently stars in the new Hulu series The Great with Elle Fanning, which just dropped this week. The 30-year-old actor will be working with Tom Cruise in an unknown role for Christopher McQuarrie’s upcoming Mission: Impossible 7 & 8. The film series will return to theaters on November 19, 2021.
