In the wake of the newest ‘Fantastic Four’ movie, Gruffudd looks back on his own time as Reed Richards in the mid-2000s.
Even before Marvel Studios retook ownership of the Fantastic Four and got a new movie into production, there was always a bit of fondness for the old Fox movies. Not so much the 2015 one, but the mid-2000s pair directed by Tim Story and starring Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, and Michael Chiklis still have their fans. Those films were general audiences’ first introduction to the characters, and there remains a bit of attachment to those versions, particularly after Evans came back for brief, fiery thirds in Deadpool & Wolverine.
In a recent Vulture interview, Gruffudd talked about still having “pure excitement” over booking the role of Reed Richards. He didn’t grow up reading the comics, but he felt a duty to portray Reed as “naïve” about his powers at first, but still “honorable and noble, and clearly a bookish character who was passionate about science and wanted to do good for the world.
