Main characters
Reed Strucker
Reed Strucker (portrayed by Stephen Moyer) is a father trying to balance his family responsibilities with his job as a district attorney. [1] [2] His father repressed his x-gene when he was a child, without his knowledge. In the beginning of the second season, Reed's stress causes his powers of disintegration to emerge uncontrollably.
Moyer was cast as Reed, the series' lead, in February 2017. [1] [2] He said of the character, "He thinks he's doing the right thing by moving [the mutants]. He does know these camps aren't particularly nice. He knows a few people he's captured have disappeared. He also knows this could happen to his kids. He has no choice but to go on the run." [3] Reed was originally "more obviously out for himself and slightly less interested in his kids, slightly less interested in the marriage", but this was changed in reshoots of the pilot to make the character more likeable. [4]
Caitlin Strucker
Caitlin Strucker (portrayed by Amy Acker) is a mother and nurse struggling with her "increasingly challenging" teenage children. [2] [5] She later takes more of a leadership role in the Mutant Underground.
Acker joined the cast as Caitlin, the female lead for the series, in March 2017. [5] [2] She had auditioned alongside the already-cast Moyer; the pair did not meet the actors playing their children until the table read of the pilot episode. [6] Showrunner Matt Nix said that though Caitlin does not have mutant powers, she is not "just a mom" or "just the doctor" in the series, and "over the course of the show I really love the idea of showing the evolution of a suburban mom into an underground warrior." [7] Acker added that the character was "happy with the life that she had, and that all gets flipped around, pushing her to become who she should be." [6]
Marcos Diaz / Eclipse
Marcos Diaz (portrayed by Sean Teale) is a rebellious mutant who can absorb and manipulate photons, and goes by the moniker Eclipse. [8] Eclipse was rejected by his human parents, and grew up smuggling drugs from Mexico to the United States. The mutant underground uses him to smuggle mutants to safety in Mexico. [9]
Teale was cast as the character, who was created for the series, in February 2017. [8] Eclipse took inspiration from comic characters such as Sunspot and Wolverine. [10]
Lauren Strucker
Lauren Strucker (portrayed by Natalie Alyn Lind) is one of the series' central children, a "perfect" kid. [2] [11] Her mutant power is creating forcefields [12] which she does by compressing air molecules into shields. [13] When holding hands with her brother, Andy, the two are able to combine their separate abilities into destructive light energy. This was inherited from their great-grandfather and his sister, the Von Struckers, who were mutant terrorists. Lauren fears her family's history and does not want to become like them. Later in the second season, after researching the Von Struckers, Lauren discovers she can rotate her shields at rapid rates, allowing them to cleanly slice through objects.
Andy Strucker / Andrew von Strucker
Andy Strucker (portrayed by Percy Hynes White) is one of the series' central children, a sensitive loner who keeps to himself. [2] [5] His mutant power is a form of telekinesis, being able to push things away and sideways, tear them apart, make them vibrate, etc. [14] When holding hands with his sister, Lauren, the two are able to combine their separate abilities into destructive light energy. This was inherited from their great-grandfather and his sister, the Von Struckers, who were mutant terrorists. Unlike Lauren, who fears their family's past, Andy embraces it, renaming himself Andrew von Strucker. At the end of the first season, he leaves the Mutant Underground to join the Inner Circle.
Jace Turner
Jace Turner (portrayed by Coby Bell) is a man struggling with the cold-blooded requirements of his job. [15] Turner is a Sentinel Services agent, trying to find the Struckers and the other mutants. [16]
Bell joined the series as Turner in March 2017, rounding out the series' regular cast. [15] Nix said the character is "more than just a villain hoping to round up every last superpowered human," but is instead trying to find the balance between protecting society and taking away the rights of mutants. [16] Turner quits at the end of the first season, but remains dedicated to the fight against the mutants who he feel "have taken everything from him". [17] On the character potentially joining an extreme anti-mutant group like the Purifiers, Nix said it was important to note that the racial discrimination of the real world also exists within the series, and they would have to be careful when trying to associate an African-American character with a group reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan. [18]
Clarice Fong / Blink
Clarice Fong (portrayed by Jamie Chung) is a "sarcastic, lively" mutant with teleportation powers, who goes by Blink. [19]
Chung was cast as Blink, a popular mutant from the comics, in February 2017. [19] [20] An "independently minded" member of the mutant underground, Blink begins the series using her abilities as "a way out of situations she doesn't want to be in", but her abilities and relationship to them evolve throughout the series. While discussing Asian representation in film, and television on series such as Fresh Off the Boat , Chung, who is Korean-American, credits both her casting and the earlier casting of Fan Bingbing as Blink (a character not portrayed as Asian in the comics) in X-Men: Days of Future Past to "the flexibility that 20th Century Fox has with turning these comic book characters into something a bit more reflective", with Chung's portrayal intended to be younger version of Bingbing's incarnation of the character, with the same original surname ("Fong") created for the character in the film, replacing their comic book surname ("Ferguson"). [21] Chung wears heavy-duty contact lenses to portray Blink's mutant green eyes, [22] and also has pink markings on her face; as the character's abilities grow, more markings are added, adding more similarity to the comic book character's appearance. [23]
John Proudstar / Thunderbird
John Proudstar (portrayed by Blair Redford) is a strong-willed mutant, leader of the underground community, who goes by Thunderbird. [2] [24]
Redford was cast as a mutant leader named "Sam" in February 2017, [24] who was revealed to actually be Thunderbird in May with the series order. [2] Nix said the character is "dealing with his own issues of feeling the weight of thousands of years of Apache history and mutant history and an obligation to both families". Thunderbird is famous for being killed off shortly after his introduction in the comics, and though Nix said that this would not happen in the series, it will explore "the relationship of this guy to the Thunderbird of the comics". [25] Thunderbird's costumes generally include a leather vest. [26]
Lorna Dane / Polaris
Lorna Dane (portrayed by Emma Dumont) is a brave and loyal mutant whose abilities include controlling magnetism. She prefers the name Polaris. [5] She is introduced as being "unstable" due to bipolar disorder. [9] [27]
Dumont was cast in March 2017. [5] Nix did not originally intend to have the character in the show, and only added her as a love interest for Eclipse, but later noted that she "emerges as a central character" for the series. [28] The character is depicted with green hair, as she is in the comics, but "subdued shades of green". [10] She initially hides her hair with dye, which comes out in a shower sequence for which hair designer Charles Yusko created twelve different wigs and hair pieces, some of which could change color. [29] [30] Dumont took mechanical engineering classes at Georgia State University to help understand the character's abilities, [3] and based her hand movements for Polaris using her abilities on those of cosplayers that Nix saw at a comic convention in Dallas. [31] Polaris's costume includes metallic elements such as rings that she can use as weapons, and steel-toed boots that she can use to levitate. [26]
The pilot reveals that the character is pregnant, which Dumont thought would make a "normal person" more cautious, but for Polaris "it's the total reverse where she’s like, ‘I have something in the world to care about and now I’m going to fight even harder,’ and that is probably pretty dangerous." [32] The pregnancy begins to physically change her abilities around episode 10 of the first season, giving her "a second manifestation" of her powers. [31] Additionally, in the series there is "some awareness" that Polaris is the daughter of Magneto, which Nix said would lead to the question "does she accept the mantle of her birthright? Is it her job to be Magneto in his absence?" [9] [33] The first season finale builds to this, with Polaris having to decide between the more extreme views of Magneto and those of the underground, particularly Eclipse. [34] [31]
The premiere of season two establishes her abilities as being permanently altered by the pregnancy, causing a city-wide electrical power surge while giving birth to her baby, which she names "Dawn".
Frost sisters
The Frost sisters (portrayed by Skyler Samuels) are telepathic sisters—Esme, Sophie and Phoebe—with their own agenda, separate from those of the mutant underground, Sentinel Services, and Trask Industries; the surviving three of identical quintuplets, their deceased sisters being Celeste and Mindee. [35] They are based on the Stepford Cuckoos comic book characters.
Samuels was revealed to have joined the series as Esme in November 2017, [36] soon said to be a "key recurring role" for the series. [37] Esme was revealed to be one of the Frost siblings, with Samuels also portraying her sisters Phoebe and Sophie. [35] [38] By January 2018, Samuels was being considered for promotion to a series regular for the show's second season, and she stated that her characters would be appearing more in the second season than the first either way. [38] She was confirmed as a series regular in June. [39]
Samuels' hair and wardrobe was designed as an homage to the comics, though the series' portrayal of the sisters deviates from the comics in some ways; the Esme character in the comics was one of two sisters who died before there were the three Stepford Cuckoos. [35] Because the three characters are often dressed identically, Samuels tried to differentiate them through behavior and how they each talk. The effect of the three characters together was created with a mixture of effects: split-screening, green-screening, and face replacements over doubles when Samuels worked with two other actresses portraying the other sisters. [35]
Reeva Payge
Reeva Payge (portrayed by Grace Byers) is a member of the 'Inner Circle' and has an elite band of followers. [39]
Byers was cast in the role in June 2018. [39]
Reeva is an incredibly powerful mutant and becomes the leader of the Hellfire Club after she uses her powers to neutralise the other members of the Inner Circle while the Frost sisters shoot them dead. Her abilities allow her to emit a high frequency from her vocal cords that can scramble minds. It can cause Mutants to lose control of their powers, even causing them to hurt themselves. Reeva establishes herself as a firm mother-figure to Lorna and Andy and helps ensure that the former’s newborn baby is cured of a rare disease to ensure Polaris's properly motivated for her grand goals. While she has been shown to be affectionate toward the Frost Sisters, she is very ruthless and unforgiving, having killed her own comrades to ensure her vision for mutantkind is successful. She states to Andy that she will do anything to see her goal succeed. Reeva has ordered the deaths of several humans to keep the Inner Circle's proceedings are kept secret and even considers killing Andy for being indecisive about joining the Inner Circle as she perceives a mutant as powerful as he is with the underground a threat, but then proceeds to change her mind and encourage Andy in a more motherly fashion. Reeva and the Frost Sisters share a close relationship but even they are afraid to voice opposing opinions in her presence.
It is later revealed that although she appears to be a villain, Reeva was in fact an advocate for equality in her community eight years ago before a close friend was attacked and murdered in the street before her eyes. Present day she dates and loves a human man, Quinn, although she is secretly using him for the betterment of her goals as well. Reeva is shocked when one of her newer underlings, Twist, kills Quinn and several humans in a grotesque display of madness.
