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‘Deadpool & Wolverine’s’ Emma Corrin and Matthew Macfadyen on playing the film’s villains

Written by ABC Audio ALL RIGHTS RESERVED on July 26, 2024

Meet the British villains of Deadpool & Wolverine! The Marvel sequel, in theaters Friday, introduces fans to Mr. Paradox, a bureaucrat in the Time Variance Authority played by Matthew Macfadyen, and Cassandra Nova, played by Emma Corrin.

Cassandra’s the evil twin sister of X-Men founder Charles Xavier, and Corrin tells ABC Audio it was a “delicious” role to sink their teeth into.

Adds Corrin, “I mean, Cassandra’s a handful, and she’s unpredictable and keeps the boys guessing, which is great. And, yeah, it was a lot of fun.”

Cassandra can probe your deepest and darkest thoughts by physically sinking her fingers inside your body; Corrin says that in order to achieve that effect, they had to wear prosthetic fingers, which was a challenge.

“It’s like having fingers on your fingers,” they say. “But it feels interesting because you can’t, I couldn’t do anything once I had them on because they also had nails on them, which were very fragile. So, yeah, I couldn’t go to the bathroom by myself, which was humbling.”

Macfadyen is the Emmy-winning star of the HBO series Succession, playing Tom Wambsgans, and he talked to ABC Audio about who’s more conniving and power hungry: Tom or Mr. Paradox.

“They’re so sort of far apart and weirdly close together. I don’t think Tom is particularly power hungry and conniving. He just sort of thinks in the moment and rises without trace to the top,” he suggests.

Paradox, on the other hand, is “just sort of cross with where he is. He’s waiting for a universe to die and it’s taking too long. And so he … he decides to do something about it.”