Edi Gathegi has put together a strong resume in Hollywood over the years, including appearing in the 2011 film X-Men: First Class as Darwin. But is the 42-year-old actor ready to get back into the Marvel world? PopCulture.com caught with Gathegi who would love to reprise his role as Darwin based on what happened to the character in X-Men: First Class.ย
“Darwin was done quite dirty,” Gathegi told PopCulture. “This is the mutant whose superpower is that he can’t die and he adapts to survive. And even in the comics, he dies and regenerates. In some ways, I feel like his story is unfinished, but I’m a fan of Marvel. I love all the stuff that they do. And if there was a place for me in the future, of course, I would be excited to potentially join.”
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X-Men: First Class tells the story of how the X-Men got started. It’s a prequel to the 2000 film X-Men and is set in 1962 during the Cuban Missle Crises. The film was a commercial and critical success as it earned over $350 million in the box office and an 86% score on Rotten Tomatoes.ย
“It’s always a pinch-yourself moment when you’re working on an expensive, highly produced production because things are practical,” Gathegi said when talking about filming X-Men: First Class. The headquarters that they’re training us out of, it felt like we were in the real FBI… Not FBI because it’s England, but their version.”ย
Following X-Men: First Class, Gathegi went on to star in various films and TV shows, including The BlackList and StartUp. He can currently be seen in the new movie The Harder They Fall, which is out in theatres now and will start streaming on Netflix on Nov. 3. Gathegi plays Bill Pickett, a cowboy who is part of Nat Love’s gang trying to take out Rufus Black. The Harder They Fall is a fictional story but features real Black cowboys from the 1800s.ย
“It was a no-brainer because of what the mission is,” Gathegi said. “Not a lot of people know this, but one in four Cowboys was black and we have been systematically erased from this part of history. I think what we’re endeavoring to do … continue this conversation of inclusion, bringing a Western like this into the world is in many ways attempting to right the wrongs that have been done with our culture.”
