Bryan Singer breaks down the changing voice, size and color of Apocalypse

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

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There's a lot of trepidation about Bryan Singer's X-MEN: APOCALYPSE, and it really all stemmed from the very first picture we saw of the titular villain. Bathed in a purple and pink hue, it brought forth images of Ivan Ooze from the POWER RANGERS movie, and not of an X-Men villain to be feared. Recent pictures and trailers have rectified this, although now his voice seems to be changing in each preview. So what's the deal? Singer answered as much and more when speaking with IGN about Oscar Isaac's villainous character.

Bryain Singer on Apocalypse's changing voice:

[The first X-Men: Apocalypse trailer] was simply Oscar using his normal voice — which is wonderful; his performance is fantastic — but that was never the intention. We just needed those words to govern the first teaser. So people thought, 'Oh, wait, is that going to be his voice during the whole movie?' It's like, no, but to tell the story of the first teaser, we needed the voice, and I hadn't recreated the voice yet.

What I'm doing is something very unique. It hasn't been done before. We're rerecording his entire performance because the suit's creaky and makes all kinds of noise, you can't really use any of it anyway. But I want his performance. So he's being recorded in ADR using a standard Sennheiser microphone, but also with a bass mic to his right cheek and a bass drum mic to his left cheek. These two microphones have the ability to pull vocal range out of his voice that the human ear cannot hear. And I can take that vocal range that I've now recorded, and I can pull it and use it to augment his voice — and that with a little digital magic can create a voice that's both completely governed by his performance but is not natural.

It ebbs and flows and moves through the movie, and changes, so he doesn't just have one single voice. He speaks with different voices depending on different moments in the film. So it's really kind of cool. It's the first time I've ever had the tools to sculpt a performance in post-production, that was already given to me on set and chosen in the cutting room.

Regarding his size:

So then people were like, 'He's small.' I'm like, 'Okay, I got the same s*** when I cast a six-foot-three actor to play five-foot-four Wolverine. I got the same s*** when Quicksilver's very sweet, 1970s costume was released on an Empire Magazine cover.' You know, every time. I could have made him a giant through the whole movie, or some muscle-bound guy who can't act — I could always do that. But the reality is, among his many powers — and you will see him change size — but among his many powers is his power of persuasion, and it was very important that he'd be able to connect with his horsemen, at their level, and that he'd be played by a guy who can actually act like Oscar, who's a fantastic actor.

On his color:

There was an image released on Entertainment Weekly, where the effect hadn't been put in yet, so everyone was — the effect has a pink light on it, and everyone got lit up pink, so people thought Apocalypse was going to be pink. I was like, 'No, no, they're all pink. Take a look. Everyone in the picture is pink. It's a pink picture.' They maybe just should have taken the pink out of the picture — I should have taken the pink out of the picture. I'm going to take some blame for that. My fault, not Entertainment Weekly's. That's the picture I gave them.

So do you think those answers will placate the many fans out there who feel uneasy about the newest X-Men flick? I'll admit that APOCALYPSE isn't getting me hyped like DAYS OF FUTURE PAST did, but I will own up to the fact I thought Quicksilver's design was atrocious before I saw that film, and I ended up loving him (like many others). Perhaps we should give the man the benefit of the doubt. After all, Oscar Isaac is a bro.

Source: IGN

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