The New Mutants is bringing Dani Moonstar to the big screen for the first time with Blu Hunt in the part. The character will be in the beginning stages of exploring and developing her mutant powers as her past has driven her to an institution where she is staying with other mutants who also have troubled pasts. These elements for Moonstar will be fairly accurate to the comics, though some details such as her Black Eagle grandfather will be left untouched. Hunt connected with ComicBook.com for an exclusive interview where she opened up about her characters powers and past.
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“It’s definitely different than the comic books, because I mean, I know Dani’s past in the comics is… It’s kind of, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” Hunt explains. “Her parents being the [Demon Bear], but the Bear killed her parents and all these crazy things and her [grandfather’s death] obviously kind of sending her off on the journey. It’s a lot more. If you’ve seen the opening of a movie, that’s about as big of a glimpse as we get into where she has come from, that’s kind of her flashback. And her flashback, I mean, even though it’s present, begins the movie and we don’t really get to go back, but she does talk about it frequently.”
Moreover, Moonstar’s past and roots holds a special place in Hunt’s heart. “Her talking about her life on the reservation, getting that dialogue right, working through that dialogue with [director Josh Boone] and the producers was really important to me. Sometimes things would be written and I’d be like ‘Oh, I don’t think she should say that about her people and where she comes from.’ Because it is such a complicated place to grow up and I think we wanted to bring it more into realism, a little bit less away from the comic and more into what is being a young Native American person like today.”
Hunt notes that Boone was very collaborative with the cast of the film.
As for mutant abilities, Moonstar will be representing her comic book counterpart very accurately. “Her mutant abilities are the same as the comic,” Hunt said. “Other than there being some slight changes in her past, the Demon Bear saga, that comic, it is like the movie is that.”
Changes to the Demon Bear story only allowed Hunt’s Dani Moonstar to play a larger role. “We changed some things, but there was an original draft where, because in the comics, she kind of commits a symbolic suicide and there was a draft where it was like that. I really loved that, especially because that is a really, it’s an untalked about issue in the native community with young people face issues like that all the time. And so I thought it was really cool that was in there originally and the comic book is so dead on about their portrayal of that. But we ended up changing that a little. But other than that, Dani’s journey in the comic and the journey in the movie is very, very, very similar. I’m alive for more in the movie than in the comic, because she gets knocked out pretty quickly, but otherwise, yeah. The powers are the same.”
The New Mutants hits theaters on August 28.
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Image Credit: IDW Publishing
