The problem with making movies for fanboys is surprising them. While many people avoid any possible spoilers when it comes to upcoming movies, many fans scour the Internet for any little details they can find about upcoming movies (in many cases just to complain about the movies, of course). This has led film studios to conducting preproduction and production of certain films in absolutely secrecy — see Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Captain America: Civil War as evidence. For actors it often means they have to go to auditions without being able to see any scripts, without being told much of anything about the films they’re audition for, and, in the case of Brianna Hildebrand who played Negasonic Teenage Warhead in Deadpool, not even knowing the name of her character. In an interview with Yahoo! Movies, Hildebrand spoke about the secret audition process and what it is about how character that she relates to.
Hildebrand was left in the dark about the character she was auditioning for. She explains, “When I auditioned, her name was Kathy, because they do these codenames. I didn’t know anything about the film at all, asides the fact that Ryan Reynolds was cast in it. And the character I was auditioning for was a telepath who could see the future. But that’s it. That’s all I knew.” In fact, Hildebrand didn’t even find out the name of her character until she was cast in the past, adding, “And then I find out after I get the role that her name is ‘Negasonic Teenage Warhead,’ and I’m like, ‘That’s a mouthful.'”
The little-known character’s superpowers were largely changed for the film, so Hildebrand saw it as a plus that Negasonic Teenage Warhead was so obscure. She reveals that she thought, “not a lot of the fans will be super-upset because of the way my character’s portrayed because there’s not a lot to compare her to. So it’s a lot less pressure.”
Hildebrand admits that the uncaring attitude that Negasonic Teenage Warhead emits is not too dissimilar to the person she was a few years ago. She says, “Definitely a few years ago she was pretty similar to me. I went through a rebellious phase and was super into doing crazy hair things. I did only wear black for my junior year of high school. I was one of those kids.”
Joining the X-Men franchise has been a 16-year-and-counting commitment for some of the franchise’s key actors, and Hildebrand reveals that’s she’s interested in playing the character in future X-Men movies. She remarks, “I would definitely want for Negasonic’s character to be more explored. But I’m not actually sure about [where she fits into the wider X-Men universe] because there’s not much that I know about the X-Men world. Which should probably change.”
