Jennifer Lawrence has candidly shared that the main driving force of her decision to reprise her superhero role as Mystique in X-Men: Dark Phoenix is the fans. The Academy Award winning actress first joined the long running comic book film series in 2011's X-Men: First Class, which is a prequel to the original trilogy from the early 2000s. She plays the enigmatic, shape-shifting mutant who was first brought to life by Rebecca Romjin. Since then, Lawrence has already reprised the role two more times -- X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse -- and a fourth and possibly final time is on the way with the currently in-development Simon Kinberg-directed film.
It was no secret that after Apocalypse, Lawrence's contract, as well as other principal cast members from the prequel films like James McAvoy who plays the younger Professor X, Michael Fassbender as the young Magneto and Nicholas Hoult as young Beast were all up. At that point, there were many speculations that the four are looking to bow out from their roles to give way to a new cast of characters spearheaded by Sophie Turner as the young Jean Grey. It turns out, however, that the foursome eventually decided to return for at least one more movie and the actress shares, that at least for her, it was her token of appreciation for all the love and support from the fans.
Speaking to Digital Spy while doing the press rounds for her latest project, the thriller mother!, the actress has detailed what brought her back to the X-Men franchise even when she was no longer obligated to reprise her mutant role:
"My contract was up, I didn't have to do another one, but if I didn't do another one, what would her story be? I felt like I owed it to the fans, and I owed it to the character to follow her journey, to be fair to the movies, and not be like, 'I don't want to do another X-Men!' And then I just never show up and everyone's very confused about the Mystique they've been following for the last three films."
While it's not yet clear just how big of a role Mystique will play in Dark Phoenix, Lawrence has a point in terms of just leaving the character like that, especially with where she was by the end of Apocalypse and how her relationship with Charles, Erik and Hank will progress moving forward. Further, it has also not been confirmed or denied if Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is indeed her son just like in the comic books. It would be great to see a proper send-off or even just an explanation why she (and possibly other principal cast members) will no longer be around in future films shall there be more.
Narrative specifics details are still scant for X-Men: Dark Phoenix although its director has previously said that it won't be too cosmic and Jessica Chastain is already confirmed to play the movie's main big bad, the alien Empress Lilandra. While it will follow certain tropes from the comic book storyline of the same name, it is expected that some creative liberties will be taken by Kinberg and his team to craft a familiar and yet still interesting storyline.
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Source: Digital Spy
