- Two stars in The Fantastic Four: First Steps had very little time to build chemistry before filming began
- The actors behind Galactus and The Silver Surfer didn’t film scenes together, either
- They only had a 24-hour period to gel as a pair and met just once on the movie’s set
The actors behind The Fantastic Four: First Steps‘ antagonists have revealed they had very little time to build rapport between their characters.
Ralph Ineson and Julia Garner told TechRadar that they only had 24 hours to craft the complex relationship that exists between Galactus and The Silver Surfer, who they respectively portray in the Marvel Phase 6 film.
Considering how important it is for actors to build chemistry before and during filming, I was pretty shocked to learn Ineson and Garner weren’t given more opportunities to do that.
My surprise was elevated by the fact that the duo were present on set for large parts of the Marvel movie’s shooting schedule, too. Garner, who, unlike Ineson, got to act opposite those playing The Fantastic Four, wore a motion capture (mocap) suit to portray Galactus’ Herald in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film.
Meanwhile, Ineson was fully kitted out in a practical suit so he could appear on set – albeit not in the same scene as other actors – as the immortal planet-devouring space entity. That way, the film’s crew could capture Ineson’s movements in real time and incorporate them into specific scenes in post-production. He could also be scaled up or down in said sequences, depending on how big the size-altering Galactus needed to be.
Given the complicated dynamic at play between Galactus and his surfboard-riding lieutenant in the comics, many fans might have expected Ineson and Garner to spent time discussing how to bring that to life in a live-action capacity. As I said earlier, though, the opportunity to do so hardly presented itself to them.
“Because of the way you shoot a character like Galactus, who can be 50 foot tall or even larger, you have to shoot under bright lights [to fully capture his likeness],” Ineson said. “So, everything you do as an actor is a solo thing. We [Ineson and Garner] did so little work together, we hardly ever crossed paths –”
“So, there was no collaboration at all?”, I interjected.
“Not really, no,” Ineson replied, before Garner chimed in to say: “We had a tent day! We had one day to check in to see what each other was doing and read some offlines [parts of an actor’s script that don’t need a live acting partner] together.”
“From my point of view, there was something quite nice about playing Galactus,” Ineson mused. “I’d come in once a month for costume fittings and they [the rest of the cast] would be going to set and having this really incredible bonding session as a family, and I’d have this lonely acting experience that actually helped me to tap into Galactus’ mindset as this one-of-a-kind space god.”
“I was also coming in and out [of scenes with the Fantastic Four],” Garner added, “So I didn’t have much time to bond with them, either. I’d swoop in and be like ‘Hey guys, this is what’s going on’ or ‘Hey, my boss said this, okay, bye!'”
First Steps, one of 2025’s most anticipated new movies, arrives in theaters on Friday, July 25. Before it does, check out my ultimate guide to The Fantastic Four: First Steps or read the section below for more coverage of the final MCU film of the year.
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