It’s been a long time coming, but The Fantastic Four: First Steps marks the debut of Marvel’s First Family in the MCU. Aside from Pedro Pascal’s Reed Richards, Vanessa Kirby’s Sue Richards, Joseph Quinn’s Johnny Storm, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s Ben Grimm, the ’60s era superhero film features Julia Garner as Shalla-Bal/Silver Surfer and Ralph Ineson as Galactus.
Ahead of The Fantastic Four: First Steps‘ premiere, Fortress of Solitude spoke to Garner and Ineson to find out more about their experiences. One of the questions we simply had to ask was if Garner managed to catch up with Laurence Fishburne and Doug Jones who played the Norrin Radd version of the Silver Surfer in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. “No, I wish,” Garner said. “I’m such a fan of both of them, so that would have been amazing, but no. It actually worked out because this is Shalla-Bal [I’m playing], so it was a little bit of a different approach in a way. But I’m a big fan of both of them, so that would have been wonderful.”
For Ineson, Galactus is a massive role – in both senses of the word, since the cosmic entity is the Devourer of Worlds and demands everyone sit up and take notice when he’s on screen. We mentioned to Ineson how Meryl Streep once spoke about the advice she remembered from an acting teacher about playing Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada. Streep said you don’t play a queen; it’s all in how other people react when you walk into the room. So, we asked if Ineson applied a similar approach to carry the gravitas of Galactus when he stepped on set.
“You’re using the tools at your disposal in a sense,” Ineson said. “I mean, I’m 6′ 3”. I have quite an imposing bone structure [laughs]. People react to that in a certain way – in real life, as well as in acting life. And my voice is naturally deep. So, you use your tools that you have and exaggerate those. You can’t try to act present. It’s one of those things. You can try and think yourself bigger, you can try and act more imposing, but as Meryl Streep said, it has to come from something deeper inside: the confidence that you’ve worked on for that character, the way you carry yourself and everything. So, it’s a mixture between the work you do as an actor and the help you get from the natural tools you have. Some actors naturally will have more presence because of their physicality.”
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The Fantastic Four: First Steps clobbers its way into theaters on July 25, 2025.
