There’s never any lack of material for Marvel fans to chew on, rehash, and theorize about online but if one was pressed to pick a number one fave right now, it’s fan-casting the long-expected, practically inevitable MCU version of the X-Men. And some fans believe they’ve really nailed it when it comes to who should play the team’s hirsute and highbrow resident biochemist, Dr. Henry “Hank” McCoy aka The Beast.
And it’s not that super-guy.
While Man of Steel actor Henry Cavill has certainly amassed his own faction of fan-casters, plenty of folks are supporting the idea that the loquacious Matt Berry, star of What We Do In Shadows as well as the cult hit Toast of London and its spinoffs is the man best suited to play the well-spoken (and more than occasionally long-winded) Beast.
The Beast has gone through plenty of changes during his tenure as an X-Man. Starting out in the 1960s comics as a more or less normal human of ape-like proportions, McCoy underwent a series of further mutations that left him covered in blue fur and later, transformed his outward look into a cat-like feral appearance. But McCoy’s longest-lasting characteristic over the years has been his propensity for erudite, high-brow speech, which can take the simplest of topics and turn it into a Stephen Hawking dissertation. A talent he shares with many of Berry’s most iconic roles.
Whether as bumbling actor and VO artist Steven Gonville Toast or as British aristocratic vampire Leslie “Laszlo” Cravensworth or any one of a myriad of characters he has portrayed or voiced over the years, Berry always brings his amazing and hilarious command of the English language to his work. Based on that alone, Berry would make a perfect Hank.
Of course, Berry doesn’t exactly have the, let us say, physicality, of Cavill. Berry is also nearly a decade older than the Enola Holmes actor. However, more mature versions of the character have been seen before. Although the film is held in generally low regard, X-Men: The Last Stand featured an older version of McCoy played by Kelsey Grammer that was liked by many fans. And if filmmakers let CGI do a lot of the heavy lifting as far as the character’s superhuman agility and strength, Berry may just be the best man for the Beast.