Gaining a huge amount of popularity on G4, Olivia Munn is no stranger to the nerd-world. Known for her total embrace of said subculture, Olivia Munn has broken away from TV and decided to try her hand at acting. Her role? The deadly Psylocke in X-Men Apocalypse! As far as we know, Psylocke is one of Apocalypse’s Four Horsemen and that she is totally dedicated to the role. Speaking on her costume, Munn said, “Everybody together decides what the costume should look like, so it’s like an art picture of, ‘Here’s like what we think Psylocke is going to look like.’ There’s my head. I was like, ‘Oh, you’re going to want me to work out more than I’ve already …I think my first thought was it has to be purple, because we were going up against time and making it. It was black at first…The latex is in black and all the armor is in black and it’s just easier, but I was like, ‘You got to make it purple.’ That was kind of my first thought when I saw myself in the costume, which is the Photoshop. When I first saw myself completely put together, it was a very nerdy cool dream. It’s just like, “Whoa.” It just doesn’t really seem real.”
Olivia then referred specifically to the power set of Psylocke. In the comics, she has all sorts of mind related powers like telepathy, telekinesis, and the ability to pick winning Powerball numbers (forget that last one). “Psylocke is telepathic and telekinetic. In the movie, we see her being a telekinetic. We don’t see her being telepathic. It’s a decision because this is the first time we’ve really been able to see the character of Psylocke and have her really, truly exist in the movie. I talked about it with Simon Kinberg,’ stated Munn. “There’s just so much going on, especially with Apocalypse’s power, and then trying to take on all of the X-Men. When you are telepathic, I feel that it’s a power that you want to hold close to your chest. It’s a card that you don’t want a lot of people to know about because it’s so much more powerful when people don’t know that you have this power.”
Continuing, Munn then confirmed that we will be seeing some swordplay in Apocalypse. “Yeah, which is why I had to learn to use a regular sword with both hands, so I can switch in between. It’s more work for the special effects guys but it’s pretty cool. That was actually James McAvoy’s idea. He was like, “’f you can use both hands,’ he’s like, ‘Then you can go, you can switch, you can…’ Because the thing about sword work is that you’re always keeping somebody off. Like they don’t really know it’s happening. You’re really throwing people off. Your opponent. He was like, “Well, you can really throw them off if you’re going from your real sword to your psychic sword and then just switching hands and it’s just…’ I was like, ‘That sounds awesome.’”
“She’s methodical and very loyal and she’s very calm and she’s fearless,” said Munn, referring to Psylocke’s personality in Apocalypse. “Her aggression is below the surface, but it’s like, it’s bubbling … It’s right there at any moment to access. She’s a very calm, easygoing, kind of person within this world of insanity, but she’s so powerful and strong. That feeling of when did anything where you’re learning a skill. Once you learn it, you feel really powerful. She’s very comfortable in her skin.”
