‘Deadpool 2’ Cable Actor: There Is Only Stephen Lang And ‘Don’t Breathe’ Will Prove It

A contorted branch on the X-Men family tree, Cable’s time-twisted, clone-ridden and 90’s-powered backstory belies his essential stoic power. Originally conceived as Professor X’s opposite — a warrior leader for the New Mutants with battlefield chops in contrast to Xavier’s cerebrality — Cable is powerful, damaged and vengeful. When it comes to portraying Cable in Deadpool 2, you need someone with the presence of a Spaghetti Western-era Clint Eastwood and the stolid capacity to stand as Deadpool’s straight man.

While there have been many names put forward for the actor who could best play Cable in Deadpool 2, there’s only one right answer: Stephen Lang. And upcoming horror movie Don’t Breathe will prove it.

While Lang has appeared in nearly 100 movies, modern audiences will be most familiar with his role in Avatar. As Colonel Miles Quaritch, Lang possessed the unyielding capacity to subdue an entire planet singlehanded, but gave enough shades to the character to make Quaritch a multi-dimensional monster in a notoriously one-dimensional film. Lang tends to do that, elevating even catastrophes like Conan the Barbarian with a complete commitment to the reality of his character and the world, no matter how alien or fantastical.

Don’t Breathe is poised to be the most shocking, disgusting and nerve-shattering horror movie of 2016 ( our review ). Centering on three lower-class Detroit kids attempting to rob a blind man, Don’t Breathe is half haunted house movie, half creature feature, with Lang as both the haunting and the creature. A veteran with a mind damaged beyond repair, Lang stalks the would-be burglars through his boarded up house, following the slightest breath with all the tenacity of that blind Resident Evil 4 monster.

Check out the trailer for Don’t Breathe if you don’t believe me:

That voice rasping through your unconscious is just the beginning. In Don’t Breathe Lang is simultaneously vulnerable and unimaginably powerful, like a tiger in zero-g. And unlike the molded bodies of Chris Pratt and other Marvel skin fritters, Lang flexes with purposefulness and force. He’s muscled like a practical warrior, battle-scarred and brutish as, well, Cable. In Don’t Breathe he already looks like a man molded by hundreds of years of warfare.

There’s simply no other actor half as good for Cable in Deadpool 2. Ron Perlman and Jeffrey Dean Morgan play large and loud, where Lang would be a sustained bass note under Deadpool’s raving libretto. Dolph Lundgren is too cheerful. Mel Gibson is Mel Gibson. And while Cable creator Rob Liefeld is bully on Jon Hamm, he’s just too pretty.

Stephen Lang is the only actor who should be cast as Cable in Deadpool 2. If you don’t believe me now, you will when Don’t Breathe comes out.