When it comes to superhero bad guys, you generally want them to be scary, large, or bald. Sometimes, it’s all three. But for Emma Corrin’s role in the upcoming Deadpool installment, they upped the ante by making the bad guy much more elusive and unpredictable… but still bald.
In Deadpool & Wolverine, Corrin plays Cassandra Nova, the psychic super villain who may or may not be related to Charles Xavier (it’s unclear what route they are taking with this film). Unlike other Marvel bad guys, Shawn Levy requested that Corrin not think of Nova as a villain. Corrin told The Guardian, “I was, like, what? Are you serious? After all that?” Understandably, they were confused.
Instead of being a cookie cutter villain, Levy wanted Corrin to play Cassandra with a type of unpredictability. As The Guardian puts it, “[Levy] wanted sunny, sunny, sunny, then – he’d snap his fingers – clouds coming in. He shorthanded the switch to: ‘Change the weather!'”
In order to make a full transformation, Corrin would shave their head, which made the bald cap easier to fit, something Corrin was excited about. “I found it liberating, I got really into doing it whenever I could – when I was on holiday, even when I was on a boat,” Corrin said. PSA: please do no try shaving your head on a boat without proper supervision.
This isn’t the first time Corrin hinted that Cassandra Nova isn’t just your standard villain. Earlier this month, Corrin revealed Gene Wilde’s quirky/creepy Willy Wonka was also an inspiration for the villain. “They wanted her to be unpredictable,” Corrin said, who also channeled a different chilling character: Christoph Waltz’s Hans Landa from Inglourious Basterds. “He’s so disarmingly polite and nice and unaffected, and it’s really creepy,” they said. “It’s all the more sinister because he doesn’t need to do anything.”
Deadpool & Wolverine hits theaters on July 26th.
