Oscar Isaac on adapting #XMen characters from comic books to film.

IGN spoke with X-MEN: APOCALYPSE actor Oscar Isaac who was recently cast as the film’s title villain, En Sabah Nur. Isaac says director Bryan Singer and himself have had conversations about the philosophy of the character and how he’ll appear in the film.

“In the early conversations we talked a lot about that [Apocalypse’s distinct point of view and agenda],” he said. “Of course, you read the comic book, and [Apocalypse is] not so shaded with gray — except his face. [Laughs] That’s the only thing gray about him.”

As with most of the X-Men films, a character’s look can change (sometimes) drastically from comic book page to screen. Isaac feels that change is necessary when adapting a comic book character to film.

“Just as Bryan’s done with the other films, I think he seeks to find something a little more interesting than the archetypal aspects of the characters, which work really well in print, but for a film I think you want to see a bit more of the — for lack of a better word — humanity in [Apocalypse]; because ultimately this is a story about humans.”

Isaac said one of his favorite characters from the Apocalypse arc is Archangel, a good mutant who goes bad under Apocalypse’s leadership. The role was previously played by Ben Foster in THE LAST STAND, but since this film takes place in 1983, changes would need to be made to make it work. Considering the character goes through an evolution, visually speaking, maybe there’s room for more than one Angel?

“He’s a great actor,” Isaac enthused about Foster. “I don’t really know how they’re going to put all that together or exactly what characters, or how that’s going to work. But I know Angel and Archangel in particular were some of my favorite characters in that storyline. That was such a cool and dark storyline. I think that would be a cool thing to see on film.”

Further commenting on translating storylines and characters from comic books to film, Isaac feels that “ultimately, it’s about making something compelling and interesting to watch. I think being faithful to certain characters from the comics is very important, but it’s a different medium. I think, ultimately, you want to make a great movie. That’s the most important part, and then finding, if not the exact details, the soul of the characters, of the stories, of what the whole thing was. Those aspects, even if you’re moving certain things around and maybe not being true to this particular storyline and adding this new thing, I think those are much more important. The experience of it will be much more compelling in the end.”