US, January 19, 2011
Actress January Jones is no stranger to playing ice queens, having portrayed the cold Betty Draper on Mad Men for four seasons now. But this summer, Jones will portray her most chilling role yet as Emma Frost in X-Men: First Class.
Also known as The Hellfire Club's White Queen, Emma Frost is a sexy, white-clad telepath who could get anything she wanted -- money, power, prestige. She rose through the ranks of the Hellfire Club and opened her own school to train mutants and becoming an enemy of Professor Charles Xavier's gifted students.
Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass, Layer Cake) directs X-Men: First Class, which is set against the backdrop of the early 1960s and chronicles how then-friends Professor X (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender), allied by a dream of attaining justice for their fellow mutants, formed the X-Men and first take on the Hellfire Club, led by Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon).
Hot on the heels of 20th Century Fox's release of the first image of the cast, IGN had the chance to chat exclusively with Jones about portraying Emma Frost in the prequel/franchise reboot. Here's what she had to say:
IGN: What was your reaction to being offered a role in a X-Men film, and particularly this character?
January Jones: I was very excited to do something so different and so iconic and be a part of a franchise like that. But also there was a huge weight of responsibility, too, to portray that character. There are so many fans of the comics and the movies that -- inevitably, I'm going to disappoint someone, but I just wanted to really do my research and still have fun with it. It's been a blast so far. I just hope all the fans enjoy it as much as we have.
IGN: What were you thinking when you first saw what Emma Frost's costume: excited, scared or did you just find it ridiculous?
Jones: It was a little bit of both, '"Let's go for it!" and "You've gotta be kidding me?" No actual woman looks like that. She's very blessed, shall we say. So coming straight from Mad Men, literally the day before, there was no way I could get physically cut like that. Also, for a woman to get that physically cut and not lose the curvy areas was a bit of a challenge for me, so I just did some weight training and body sculpting. I had a lot of fun with that, too. All the stunt training and the physical aspects of the role that I didn't know I'd be doing were a lot of fun. Because her powers are very strong on both the mental and physical sides, so it was a lot of fun for me to go to different places than I've had to do as an actor before.
IGN: This is a project that came together very fast and is now coming out in just a few months, which would suggest that you guys were going to have to do a lot of effects and action shots practically. Was that the case and, if so, how was that compared to being asked to stand before a green screen and imagine what was happening?
Jones: Well, we're still shooting it. When I heard it was coming out that quickly, I had a lot of questions. They're editing as we go, doing the visual effects as we go. Obviously, I have a lot of faith in the people we're using for those things. I didn't have to do any wire work, but there was a lot of wire work involved for some of the characters and there are times when you're imagining this is going to be happening behind you so you react to that, which was my first experience with that sort of thing and which was fun. It was like coming to work and being a little kid and using your imagination and times feeling kind of silly, but embracing the fact that it's going to look awesome. And from what I've seen it looks amazingly incredible. Just Emma Frost's diamond form alone I've never seen anything like it.
IGN: Who do you have the most scenes with?
Jones: I'd say Kevin Bacon, probably, and McAvoy and Fassbender. Mostly those guys.
IGN: Can you talk about Emma's relationship with Sebastian and the Hellfire Club in the movie and how period do they get with the Hellfire Club?
Jones: I don't want to give any of that away as far as their relationship, but I can say that it doesn't feel like a period movie. There's obviously historical aspects in the storytelling and some of the props and stuff, but I think it feels very modern. It does take place in 1962. One of the things that's brought in from that time, the Hellfire Club aspect especially, is that it's pretty -- I dunno, the Bunnies and the Playboy clubs. It's really cool. You'd think Sinatra was there. The sets are really cool and the vibe of the whole thing is really neat.
IGN: It sounds like the kind of place the guys from Sterling Cooper Draper Price wouldn't mind frequenting.
Jones: Yeah, but with really badass mutants hanging out as well.
IGN: How much of Emma's background -- in the comics she's a self-made woman, comes from lots of money and an old Yankee family -- how much of that do we learn about in the movie, or is she really just more of a mysterious femme fatale type here?
Jones: Not in this one. We don't go into too much of the backstory. Not really. it's more of a mystery about the relationship she has with Shaw and her past and why she reacts certain ways to certain things. I think the fans of the comic who know her history will understand why she does certain things because they know her, but I don't think it'll be confusing to audiences who don't know her backstory either.
IGN: So is she definitely a villain in the movie or is she a bit more ambiguous, sort of like maybe a Bond girl where you don't know whose side she's on?
Jones: Well, she's on the side of the mutants. I have hard time defining who is good guy-bad guy in this because everyone's pro-mutant. It's just whether you trust the humans or you don't. So I can't say whether she's a bad guy or a good guy.
IGN: Can you say whether you'd do a sequel?
Jones: Yeah, I'd love to do another one. I've had a great experience on this one. It's been really, really fun and just an exciting place to go to work. Just a lot of great talent and also we just get to play. It feels like being a kid again, although my outfits are not. (laughs)
IGN: Do you think that since it's a period comic book film that's what will help differentiate it from the other comic book movies coming out soon and will make it stand out more to filmgoers? Yes, it's a recognizable brand name, but in no way like you've seen it before.
Jones: Yeah, I think that aspect will help it. I think it's just an intelligent story as well because of the history, it's a period piece, it brings in a lot of characters' backstories. You can see Professor X and Magneto and how this all came about and Sebastian Shaw. I think just having that backstory and that kind of drama aspect to it just brings a whole new level to the storytelling. It's not just all in-your-face action. There's also a real dramatic storyline underneath it that makes it much more interesting. I also think it was very smart to take a real-life historical event like the Cuban Missile Crisis or whatever it is during that time in 1962 and weave all these different storylines of these mutants. It's a really good idea that makes you feel like it could have happened or that maybe it did. I think having it set in that time will just take it up a notch.
X-Men: First Class opens June 3.
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