The Deadpool movie releases Feb. 12 and while fans (and Ryan Reynolds) waited 11 years to see Wade Wilson don the red and black costume on the big screen, there’s another mutant that has garnered a lot of praise from fans and comic book creators and that’s the metallic X-Man, Colossus .
While there has been a Colossus in the X-Men films in the past there’s no iteration that captures the comic book character like Tim Miller’s Colossus, played by Stefan Kapicic .
The 6-foot-4 actor from Montenegro grew up reading X-Men comics, which helped him understand the character and land the part, but as Kapicic told iDigitalTimes Miller’s vision for authentic characters was the driving force in Deadpool.
“I have my own view of [Colossus], but Tim when he chose me he said ‘that’s it’ and in his head he already knew what he was going to put into the movie,” Kapicic said. “So he was just trying to find exactly the actors and everything about the movie. He told me ‘let’s see what you can do’ and we were experimenting a lot.”
Kapicic and Miller experimented with Colossus’ voice range and how the metallic superhero should sound while shooting. Although Kapicic has a Slavic accent it’s not exactly Russian, which is when Miller and Kapicic tweaked the voice enough to get the desired result.
“Colossus’ and [my voice] are very similar. The difference is he has a more Russian accent than I have. I tried using mine but it would sound like me trying to do an American accent,” Kapicic said. “So we went with hard Rs. It’s Russian and it’s Colossus’ accent. The thing is, looking from a fan and a comic book geek perspective, we made the most authentic Colossus ever, the perfect comic book character on screen. And the same is with Deadpool.
“There’s no actor in the world who could play Deadpool better than Ryan Reynolds. Ryan Reynolds is Wade Wilson” he said.
Kapicic stars alongside Reynolds, whose campaign to get Deadpool made has been well-documented, and Kapicic couldn’t help but praise both Reynolds and his co-star Brianna Hildebrand, who plays Colossus’ trainee Teenage Negasonic Warhead, enough during filming.
“When you have the chance to work with that kind of star and he [Reynolds] has that star quality, that’s unbelievable,” Kapicic said. “He’s such a down to Earth man, he has such great charisma and charm. He’s always there to help to give you some indication as a fellow actor to give you a path for you to try to do and he’s there to help you, which is rare nowadays. That kind of brother in arms, someone who is with you. Brianna Hildebrand, she’s amazing. She’s a great newcomer and I think she’s going to be a huge star.”
Growing up in Montenegro, Kapicic couldn’t help but like the Russian Colossus although Kapicic admitted to being a huge fan of Wolverine as a kid and would love to work with Hugh Jackman one day. But when he was cast as Piotr Rasputin, Kapicic had to dive into some heavy research to really do the hero justice.
“I went as deep as I can. You have so many beautiful things about Colossus and the fans are raving about Colossus and they really love his character in the Deadpool movie because we have an amazing contrast between the Deadpool character and Colossus,” Kapicic said. “Because Colossus is like the Marvel Universe Superman. He’s all for justice, an idealistic guy an old Russian soul, artistic, fragile but on the outside he’s a brute, and one of the strongest characters in the Marvel Universe. But on the inside he’s a great person, a true, iconic old time superhero.”
Kapicic told us early fan reactions have been very positive and even Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld praised his Colossus performance, which really stuck out to him.
“I have so many amazing fan reactions who want to see more Colossus and I hope and pray for a sequel or other X-Men franchises in this form.”
Colossus is always in his metal form in Deadpool and Kapicic hopes to get a chance to appear while powered down in the future, but Kapicic explained why Miller wanted Colossus to look this way on screen.
“Tim decided to do that because it’s better for this kind of movie to have him right away in his superhero form to be a contrast because when you see that brute, the huge Colossus and you listen to him,” Kapicic said.“His physical self, his voice and his soul are totally different. You have a big guy who is trying to make Deadpool come to the X-Men and he’s talking about justice and how he should use his powers for good. So you have that contrast in a character, which is perfect.
“My favorite scene is the ending monologue when Colossus is going for the final time to get Deadpool to join the X-Men. It’s brilliant and a hilarious scene, I love that scene,” Kapicic said We worked on that scene because it’s a big monologue and when Colossus is trying to convince Deadpool to join the X-Men, because there are only four or five moments that really [shows] how people look at mutants or how they look at themselves. I don’t want to spoil it but it’s beautiful.“
