Cassandra Nova has finally made her live-action debut in Deadpool & Wolverine, played by Emma Corrin. Known as Charles Xavier / Professor X’s evil twin sister, she’s an Omega-level mutant with the same abilities as her brother. One of her great abilities is tactile telepathy, which includes memory walking that lets her enter and interact with another person’s memories, as she did with Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Pyro (Aaron Stanford), and Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen) to extract information. As this telepathic terror was seen on screen, a new VFX video shows how Cassandra’s powers were brought to life.
Unlike Charles, Cassandra needs physical contact with her target to activate her telepathy. In Deadpool & Wolverine, she put her fingers under her victims’ skin and in their minds. So, to show how it was done, the film’s VFX supervisor, Swen Gillberg, took viewers at a behind-the-scenes look at Cassandra’s ability.
“One of the highlight scenes of hands through face would be seen with Cassandra’s hands going through Paradox’s face,” he said. “You literally see every pore on his face. It's fantastic effects, very, very cringe worthy.”
Gillberg continued that they played with different skin thicknesses. But personally, he wanted it thinner so he could see the details of Cassandra's hands, like her knuckles, under the skin. To make it more realistic, Cassandra would work around the skull in the head, and her fingers would go over the eyeballs, which would pop out.
The effects team, alongside director Shawn Levy, ensured that Cassandra’s powers in the movie would be comic-accurate. They used and tried to match some key comic book frames, with her fingers coming out of the nostrils, eyeballs, and ears, as seen in her sequence with Paradox.
“Whenever we are replacing limbs or replacing faces, we’ll often put tracking markers on,” Gillberg continued. “Emma’s hand has to go somewhere, so we just put it off to the side or this side or out of frame. Then, we would do clean plates on the day to clean up the arm and hand. And then in post, we would do a fully digital hand and arm, and then into a mostly digital Matthew Macfadyen face.”
The process would not just end there, as they also had to go into detailed animation by getting the details of Corrin’s fingers as they slid inside the skull. The final details would be the sculpting and creature pass, which would see the exact details of her hands under the skin.
Gillberg then talked about Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) and Wolverine’s first arrival in the Void, where she put her hands through the Merc with a Mouth’s face. The second was the big battle with the Resistance, in which Cassandra got his hands through Wolverine’s face.
“The assault is a really great example of just a huge collaboration between stunts, camera department, visual effects, props, everything,” he added. “For a superhero movie, we tried to keep the whole movie fairly grounded. Whenever we can do live-action stunts, we do them always as much as we can.”
In addition to the great visual effect of Cassandra’s powers, Gillberg also commended Corrin’s performance. The Crown star perfectly nailed their villainous role, with many saying it was a perfect casting. And for Gilberg, the actor was one of the best villains he had seen in a long time.
“They just absolutely crushed it,” he praised Corrin. “Basically a complex psychopath but a villain that we all have grown to love to hate.”
Emma Corrin Feels Bad Killing Chris Evans in Deadpool & Wolverine
In addition to Cassandra’s memory-walking ability, she also possesses telekinesis, which she uses when she controls Wolverine’s body and easily skins Johnny Storm / Human Torch (Chris Evans) alive, killing him instantly in Deadpool & Wolverine. So, after witnessing fans’ excitement in fans seeing Evans on the big screen again as his Fantastic Four character, Corrin, who uses they/them pronouns, can’t help but feel bad after killing the Human Torch.
“[I felt] absolutely mad,” they told GQ. “I felt so bad when we were in the screening the other day. Because we watched it after the New York premiere with all these Lincoln Center full of fans, and everyone was so excited when they see [Evans] appear on screen, and then after three minutes, I've killed him.”
Corrin felt so terrible that they hid in their seats. They never thought they would do it, so they also felt weird. However, they understood that Marvel did it well, featuring surprising cameos and giving people what they wanted.
“But they also don't use them gratuitously. They're all there for a reason,” they continued. “And I think you really sense that. Or, I hope people sense that because I think they're used really cleverly.”
True enough, Corrin’s performance as Cassandra made the X-Men villain both loved and hated by many. They effortlessly gave the character the perfect portrayal she deserved, balancing just enough menace to make her both creepy and cute.
