Nearly two decades after donning the orange latex suit as Ben Grimm, aka The Thing, Michael Chiklis still feels strongly about the ”Fantastic Four” films – and he’s not holding back. In a conversation with MovieZine in Toronto last year, the Emmy-winning actor reflected on the superhero genre and what he still cherishes about playing Marvel’s original rock-solid hero.
”You had to ask that, didn’t you?” Chiklis laughed when I brought the topic up. ”I have a lot of feelings about that – not the least of which is, the critics got it wrong about those films.”
According to Chiklis, the tone of the 2005 ”Fantastic Four” and its 2007 sequel ”Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” was always intentional: campy, fun, and family-oriented. But critics, he argues, came in with expectations shaped by darker superhero fare like ”The Dark Knight”.
”We understood the tone and tenor,” he said. ”They were Marvel’s first family. They were supposed to be kitschy and funny and light. I think a lot of critics rejected it out of hand because they wanted some brooding ’Dark Knight,’ and that’s not what it was – or ever was going to be.”
Chiklis feels that while critics dismissed the films, audiences clearly responded. ”If you look back, the movies hold up,” he insisted. ”They’re fun and funny. A movie you take your fourteen-year-old to, and as a parent, you still get the humor. That’s why they made three-quarters of a billion dollars – the audience loved them. And the critics got it wrong. Forgive me, but they sh*t on those movies – and they were f**king wrong.”
Even now, the love from fans is undeniable.
”I just spent four months shooting in the Dominican Republic – I can’t walk anywhere without people calling out ’La Mole!'” he said, referencing his character’s name in Spanish. ”The people spoke.”
While Chiklis acknowledges the physical challenges of the role – wearing a 60-pound latex suit – he takes pride in the humanity he brought to it, especially in an era before advanced CGI.
”CGI has no humanity in it. And I am as proud of those performances as anything I’ve done in my life – especially being able to impart all that pathos and emotion through sixty pounds of rubber.”
He also shared a behind-the-scenes moment from the 2005 film – a small but poignant scene that was his own idea.
”When Ben tries to pick up the engagement ring and can’t – that wasn’t in the script,” he revealed. ”On the day, I told Tim [Story, the director], ‘It’d be really heartbreaking if this powerful being can’t even pick up a ring. And he has to go and place it in my hand.’ Tim said, ‘That’s in the movie. Let’s do that.’ That was my little touch.”
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