Lana Condor On Playing Jubilee In X-Men: Apocalypse

Sophie Turner, Kodi Smit-Mcphee, Alexandra Shipp, and Tye Sheridan headline a young and talented X-Men: Apocalypse cast. Even though they are young, they have accrued a wealth of experience and made names for themselves in the entertainment industry. But then there is Lana Condor, the fresh-faced actress that landed the role of Jubilee while still in high school, who is making her feature film debut.

“I’m super new to all of this,” Condor told Paper. “Last year I signed with my former manager and agent in December. Then the casting call went out in February and I went in for pre-reads. They were seeing a ton of girls, [but] I guess they liked me, so they actually called me the very night after my first audition and wanted to know if I would be cool cutting my hair in case they needed to. Then I went in a couple of times after. I never actually met (director Bryan Singer] or anyone else. After four or five auditions I waited. For two and a half months! I kind of knew I was in the running. [At the time] I was a second semester high school senior. None of my friends really knew that I was trying to act, because it was so new. During school, my agent and manager called me and were like, “Are you by yourself?” I was like, “No, I’m in school surrounded by all of my peers. This is the last place I’d be by myself!” They said, “Can you get by yourself?” So I snuck outside of school and they told me I got it.”

Condor found it super-intimidating when she arrived in Montreal to film X-Men: Apocalypse, as she had “never been on a set before.” But the camaraderie she built with her fellowcastmates made her worries dissipate. “Yeah. Sophie [Turner], Alex [Shipp], and Tye [Sheridan]. They were part of the younger generation of mutants,” she said. “They helped me so much and still do. Tye and I talk all the time. He gives me advice on this whole world, because it’s very different from being a student. Alex and Sophie helped me a lot with things like hair and makeup, for example. When we were going to Comic-Con, I didn’t know I needed hair or wardrobe. I didn’t know about any of that. I thought I was just supposed to go in my T-shirt. Sophie was like “Are you crazy? You have to have hair and make up!” so they helped me a lot in the girl-y stuff.”

As for Jubilee, the fan-favorite character created in 1989 by Chris Claremont and Marc Silvestri, Condor seems thrilled and honored to be bringing plasmoid creating/manipulating mutant to life. “She’s just so cool,” she offered. “Way cooler than I am, I think. She gets along with everyone. I was having this discussion with Bryan, our director, about how she represents Asians in general. X-Men have always been outsiders – minority groups, gays and lesbians. It’s like the outsiders banding together to be one. So they never really had another Asian, except for Blink, so Jubilee gets to represent the Asian outsiders who haven’t really had the easiest time fitting into society. And that’s cool. A lot of my followers are Asian or Hispanic. People are excited: “A real Asian is in the film?” It’s funny but it’s kind of true.”

Since the dawn of civilization, he was worshipped as a god. Apocalypse, the first and most powerful mutant from Marvel’s X-Men universe, amassed the powers of many other mutants, becoming immortal and invincible. Upon awakening after thousands of years, he is disillusioned with the world as he finds it and recruits a team of powerful mutants, including a disheartened Magneto (Michael Fassbender), to cleanse mankind and create a new world order, over which he will reign. As the fate of the Earth hangs in the balance, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) with the help of Professor X (James McAvoy) must lead a team of young X-Men to stop their greatest nemesis and save mankind from complete destruction.

X-Men: Apocalypse hits theaters May 27, 2016.