X-Men actor eager to play Iceman again since superhero came out as gay
Shawn Ashmore is keen to rejoin the popular superhero film franchise.
The actor who plays Iceman in the X Men movie series has expressed an interest in returning to the franchise now that the character is officially gay.
Shawn Ashmore says that he thinks that the Bobby Drake’s recent comic book coming out story is the best thing that could have happened to the character.
“Obviously the comics and movies are separate. I wonder what the transition would be because we’ve sort of established Bobby as having a love interest in Rogue and having a love interest in sort of Kitty Pryde, but I think it’d be really interesting,” Ashmore told IGN.
“I think it’d probably be the most interesting thing that could happen to Bobby in the films,” he added.
“If they decided to take the story that way, it’d be incredibly dramatic, it’d be an interesting storyline, and it would give Bobby a great character arc.”
However, he went on to say he was unsure if film-makers would be willing to put the story on the big screen.
“I’d definitely be open to that, but again, I’m not sure if they want to take the character in that direction,” he said.
“I have no idea how they would play that out. I think it’d be very interesting.”
Marvel announced earlier this year that the character Iceman, one of the original X-Men, would be coming out as gay.
The X-Men franchise has often dealt with issues of discrimination and oppression, with many similarities to LGBT rights struggles.
The story of the “Legacy Virus” that only affects mutants is seen by many to be an allegory to the HIV crisis.
Again, in X2, Iceman comes out as mutant to his parents, in a scene that strongly echoes coming out as LGBT.
However the character’s creator, Stan Lee, told the BBC he was not involved in the decision, and until the interviewer told him, he had not known.
He said: “I wasn’t involved in that – that may have been after I stopped writing the books. I didn’t really have any gay characters, I didn’t play up the fact that they were gay.
“I don’t care what happens, as long as they tell good stories, and they do,” he went on.
Lee in July poured cold water on suggestions that the superhero Spider Man should be bisexual in a future movie.
