Which super movie had a creative vision to make their main character look like they were made of junk? And just how many actors suffocated for their craft? Here are a few true heroes that really suffered in their super-suits.
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00:00Which super-movie had a creative vision to make their main character look like they were
00:04made of junk, and just how many actors suffocated for their craft?
00:08Here are a few true heroes that really suffered in their super-suits.
00:12Who hasn't imagined themselves getting to wear Batman's iconic suit and fighting crime?
00:17For Michael Keaton, who portrayed the character in Batman and Batman Returns, the experience
00:21of wearing Batman's cape and cowl turned out to be more of a nightmare than a dream come
00:25true.
00:26During the installment of Epic's Hollywood Sessions, Keaton revealed that the very first
00:29time he put on his Batman costume, he was so restrained and cramped that he was instantly
00:34convinced that he couldn't play this role.
00:36After this uncomfortable introduction to his superhero outfit, things didn't necessarily
00:40improve for Keaton in terms of his comfort.
00:42However, he noted that he utilized his constant discomfort as a way to inform the tormented
00:46internal world of Bruce Wayne.
00:48Unfortunately, the restrictive nature of this Batman costume was quite visible in the final
00:52cut of both of Keaton's Batman movies.
00:54Most notably, there are various instances in which Keaton is unable to move his neck
00:58in the outfit, forcing him to reorient his whole body when he has to shift his gaze.
01:03The Batman costume will always be the stuff of legend, but Keaton's experience with this
01:06outfit made it clear that it isn't all fun and games.
01:10You'll struggle to find a more iconic superhero movie costume than the one Michelle Pfeiffer
01:14wore for Batman Returns as Selina Kyle.
01:17This version of Kyle, who's been abused by men her whole life, embraces an outfit that
01:21reclaims her identity while tormenting the men who placed so many restrictions on her
01:25in the first place.
01:26This thematically rich and visually distinctive costume is one of the best parts of the movie,
01:31but Pfeiffer didn't always have the best time wearing it.
01:33Talking to E! News in 2012, Pfeiffer recalled how the Catwoman suit was so restrictive that
01:38she could only be in it for short periods.
01:40Still, Pfeiffer expressed interest in playing the role of Catwoman again in the future.
01:44However, she'd likely want a much more flexible costume to wear.
01:47No matter the medium, The Thing has it rough.
01:50The incarnation of the Big Orange Brute in 2005's Fantastic Four, played by Michael Chiklis,
01:55employed an elaborate latex rubber outfit.
01:57It wasn't just clobberin' time on the set for Chiklis, it was also time for some extreme
02:01psychological turmoil.
02:03The outfit proved to be more than a bit cumbersome for the actor.
02:06Speaking to WebMD about his health while filming, Chiklis revealed that when he first put this
02:10costume on, he immediately felt trapped and was gripped with anxiety.
02:14Chiklis' problems with wearing the costume for The Thing proved to be so bad that he
02:18had to talk to a psychologist to learn tactics that could make his time on set manageable.
02:22While this outfit became a bit more bearable as a shoot for Fantastic Four went on, Chiklis
02:26was always gripped with fear whenever he had to get dressed as The Thing.
02:30However, there was good news for this actor once the sequel rolled around.
02:34This time, Chiklis was given a costume that was significantly easier to take on and off.
02:38The original trilogy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies realized the titular superheroes
02:43through elaborate puppet suits, courtesy of the Jim Henson Creature Workshop.
02:47These advanced costumes made it seem like these characters had walked off the pages
02:50of the comics and into the real world, but they were also incredibly cumbersome to wear
02:55for the actors.
02:56Josh Peiss, the man who portrayed Raphael in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,
03:00recalled to The Hollywood Reporter that he felt trapped in the costume, which covered
03:04every inch of his body.
03:06On the Look Back Machine podcast, directors Michael Pressman and Stuart Gillard recalled
03:10the difficult circumstances the actors had to work with when portraying the Turtles in
03:13subsequent films.
03:15This included impaired vision, as well as having to coordinate with offset technicians
03:19who were controlling the motorized parts of the costumes.
03:21I love pizzas.
03:23I love life.
03:28Despite this, the filmmakers expressed admiration for all the performers for committing so deeply
03:32to their characters, even though they were encased in such impractical costumes.
03:37When the merry mutants of the X-Men came to the big screen for the first time in the 2000
03:42They were saddled with costumes that were a visible departure from what comic book fans
03:46expected.
03:47Traditionally, most of the members of the X-Men wear some combination of yellow and
03:50blue jumpsuits, but those outfits were nowhere to be seen in the film.
03:54Instead, the big screen X-Men were given tight, black leather outfits common to many late
03:591990s action films like The Matrix.
04:01The change in costumes was even referenced in the movie.
04:04You actually go outside in these things?
04:06What would you prefer?
04:08Yellow spandex?
04:10In a behind-the-scenes featurette for X-Men, James Marsden recalled how the first day the
04:14actors went out in their leather suits, they were required to hop over a seawall to get
04:18to the Statue of Liberty.
04:20Despite the seawall being only a few feet above the ground, nobody could step over it
04:24in their restrictive leather outfits.
04:26Marsden even went as far as to say,
04:28"...you couldn't feel less like a superhero wearing those things."
04:31Though these costumes have garnered criticism for deviating from traditional X-Men comic
04:35garb, they were also a massive problem for the actors wearing them.
04:39"...a little tight?"
04:40"...no, it's fine!"
04:42Ryan Reynolds has made his disdain for Green Lantern no secret, and among the many aspects
04:46of the movie that he's criticized is the fully CGI suit Green Lantern wears.
04:51The extremely obvious CGI nature of this attire garnered heavy criticism when Green Lantern
04:55was first released, and ended up inspiring a particularly memorable moment in the later
04:59Reynolds superhero movie, Deadpool 2.
05:01However, even before Green Lantern premiered in theaters, Reynolds was offering public
05:05criticisms of his superhero costume.
05:07Speaking at a San Diego Comic-Con International panel for Green Lantern, Reynolds commented
05:11on what it was like wearing a motion-capture suit every day that would later be replaced
05:15with a digital superhero outfit.
05:17Reynolds noted that this attire was incredibly uncomfortable, and his thoughts on the set
05:21would often drift towards yearning for a practical costume he could wear instead.
05:24At the time, he still expressed hope for all the possibilities of what this outfit would
05:28look like when CGI was applied.
05:30Not even a Green Lantern ring could make those wishes come true.
05:34There are lots of things to regret about a movie as bad as Steel, but one particularly
05:38subpar element of the movie was the superhero outfit Shaquille O'Neal was forced to wear
05:42to portray the character of Steel.
05:44A sharp contrast to what he wore in the comics, the film's vision of Steel gave the hero a
05:48rundown outfit without a cape in sight.
05:51It looked laughable, not inspiring, and just appeared to be hastily cobbled together.
05:55Speaking to Vice, film director Kenneth Johnson explained that this bizarre costume's repellent
05:59appearance was all down to how little time the crew had to get the film ready.
06:03He also noted that his own creative instincts informed the costume's subpar look, since
06:07he had wanted Steel to wear something that looked like it could be made by an ordinary
06:11person, admitting that the attire came out looking, quote, "...low-rent."
06:16Andrew Garfield had a lot of problems to overcome when he got to play Peter Parker in The Amazing
06:20Spider-Man.
06:21There were the weighty expectations of following in the footsteps of Tobey Maguire's version
06:25of the character, plus the considerations in trying to realize a version of Spider-Man
06:28that adhered to the darker tone director Mark Webb was striving for.
06:32Then there were also the impractical parts of his costume, which was a surprisingly uncomfortable
06:37piece of crime-fighting attire.
06:39Speaking on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in April 2012, Garfield waxed poetic about how his
06:43outfit was incredibly constricting and made all parts of his body extremely visible.
06:48While he noted that the costume is supposed to give a sense of freedom to Parker, Garfield
06:52only felt more self-conscious.
06:54It's no wonder that his Spider-Man costume got radically overhauled for The Amazing Spider-Man
06:582.
06:59When putting together the solo Elektra film, Jennifer Garner was conscious of how fans
07:04had received her first appearance as the character in the 2003 feature Daredevil.
07:08During a visit to the Elektra set from Superhero Hype, Garner said that the biggest complaint
07:12she'd heard from fans was that she didn't wear the character's trademark costume.
07:16While recognizing the fondness fans have for this outfit, she also noted that there was
07:20no way to translate it directly to the screen without it looking ridiculous.
07:24For Elektra, Garner wore a costume that was a bit more evocative of its comic book roots,
07:28albeit with plenty of changes to ground it in reality.
07:31Like so many women characters in mainstream comics, Elektra's comic book costume isn't
07:35exactly proper crime-fighting attire, so Garner and others involved in Elektra wanted to change
07:41that.
07:42Unfortunately, the final costume used in Elektra suffered from just not looking quite right.
07:46In the end, the costume for the movie version of Elektra was also an impractical oddity.
07:51It's not easy to play a woman who's completely covered in scaly blue skin.
07:55Though getting to play an iconic mutant like Mystique would sound like a dream come true,
08:00there were serious downsides to Jennifer Lawrence's stint in the X-Men universe.
08:04Playing Mystique required a makeup routine that lasted seven hours, a process that also
08:08left Lawrence with rashes and skin issues long after filming ended.
08:12But it got worse.
08:13I can't do any form of bathroom.
08:15Like the guys who made it were like, well she's a girl, she doesn't go to the bathroom.
08:18So I did the standing up out of a funnel.
08:24This made filming as Mystique frequently a nightmare for Lawrence, though this would
08:28get addressed in her future appearances as the character.
08:31Starting with X-Men Days of Future Past, Lawrence would wear a much more stripped-down and mobile
08:35Mystique costume, which greatly reduced the amount of time she'd spend in the makeup chair
08:39and ensured that she wouldn't have to deal with the nasty side effects, including allowing
08:42her to use the bathroom.
08:44In his career as a stuntman and martial artist, Ray Park has taken on tons of challenging
08:49roles in major motion pictures, ranging from playing Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace to
08:53portraying Toad in the very first X-Men movie.
08:56Even with all these roles, nothing could prepare Park for his time playing Snake Eyes in G.I.
09:00Joe The Rise of Cobra.
09:02To play the silent but deadly ninja superhero, Park wore a skin-tight outfit and a helmet,
09:07all in the name of emulating the character's traditional attire in other G.I.
09:10Joe media.
09:11Fidelity to the source material ensured that Park had an enormously difficult time even
09:14walking around in his on-screen outfit.
09:17Speaking to the website The213, Park noted that from the beginning, he could tell the
09:21Snake Eyes costume was going to be difficult to perform in.
09:24He decided to face this challenge head-on by bringing home a costume to rehearse in.
09:28Even with this preparation, Park was still taken aback by how he couldn't move once that
09:32Snake Eyes costume was put on.
09:34In 2018, Oscar Isaac sat down with GQ to look back on his various film roles.
09:39But when it came to portraying the titular villain of X-Men Apocalypse, Isaac's memories
09:43weren't so fond.
09:44"...Apocalypse.
09:45That was excruciating.
09:46I didn't know when I said yes that that was what was going to be happening."
09:52Isaac noted that he joined the project because he loved the X-Men mythology and the cast
09:57that was already assembled for the production.
09:59Little did the leading man of Moon Knight know that to portray Apocalypse, he would
10:02be stuck inside layers upon layers of makeup and a bulky suit.
10:06In this elaborate get-up, Isaac noted that he had trouble moving and seeing the co-stars
10:11that he'd been so excited to work with.
10:13His mobility was so restricted that a special saddle was made for Isaac that would allow
10:17him to sit while trapped within the costume.
10:19Ultimately, the reality of portraying Apocalypse did not come anywhere close to living up to
10:24Isaac's ambitions for the role.