Caffeinated Clint
Stage actor Benjamin Walker is the second official cast member to be announced for Matthew Vaughn’s “X-Men” prequel, “X-Men : The First Class”.
James McAvoy was announced last week to be playing the young Charles Xavier in the Fox tentpole.
Walker, says Showbiz411, will play ‘Beast’ (the character Kelsey Grammer played in the atrocious “X-Men : The Last Stand”).
Walker starred as Andrew Jackson in the Alex Timbers’ musical ”Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” in the show’s December 2007 world premier at the Kurt Douglas Theater in Los Angeles. He has also appeared in the films “Flags of our Fathers” and “Kinsey”.
Though Amber Heard (“The Pineapple Express”) and Rosamund Pike (“Doom”) are also rumoured to have snagged roles in the film (Heard as Mystique, Pike as Moira McTaggert) there’s been nothing official on that. It’s also believed Vaughn wants Michael Fassbender (“Inglourious Basterds”) for the role of Magneto, but he hasn’t committed at this stage (due to another offer, from the “Spider-Man” crowd).
“X-Men : First Class”, following the classic Marvel mythology, charts the epic beginning of the X-Men saga. Before Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Before they were archenemies, they were closest of friends, working together, with other Mutants (some familiar, some new), to stop the greatest threat the world has ever known. In the process, a rift between them opened, which began the eternal war between Magneto’s Brotherhood and Professor X’s X-Men.
