Doing his Thing

He might not boast the Invisible Woman’s striking beauty, the Human Torch’s pretty-boy charm or Mr. Fantastic’s unparalleled intellect, but don’t be surprised when Michael Chiklis as the Thing steals the show in Marvel Comics’ newest superhero flick, “Fantastic Four.”

A rocky-hided monster with a heart of gold, the Thing is without a doubt the most complex member of the Fantastic Four. A reluctant superhero, the Thing is endowed with incredible strength but is trapped in a body he hates. Chiklis, best known as Det. Vic Mackey from “The Shield,” felt much that same way when he was encased in 60 pounds of orange latex.

His patience and perseverance pay off, however, and the transformation becomes complete when he bellows out the Thing’s immortal words, “It’s clobberin’ time!”

You’ve called playing the Thing a dream role, yet you almost had to give it up.

When the movie got pushed from a June start date to a July start date and then to August, it looked like it would be impossible considering that FX wanted me to go into production in September for the fourth season of “The Shield.” I called Peter Ligouri, the then head of FX and now president of Fox TV, and told him this is something I’d really like to do and is there any way it can be worked out? I have to say my friend Peter was a real champion about it since he was the one who had to make the most concessions. He was faced with pushing back the production of “The Shield” 3 1/2 months to accommodate me, and that’s exactly what he did.

After starring as John Belushi in the 1989 film “Wired,” why has it taken so long for you to be featured again on the big screen?

It’s been a difficult road at times for me. It’s only been in recent years that I’ve come into the look, the person, the man I was supposed to be as an actor. It’s not easy to find the right role when, frankly, you can’t get into the room. Much of my career has been making the best from what was available to me as an actor. All things considered, I’m pleased with the way things are working out, but there’s been a lot of dues-paying.

On a conceptual level you probably understood what it would take to transform into the Thing, but putting on 60 pounds of latex must have been a sobering experience.

I’ve always been such a solid person -- there’s a reason why I was cast as the rock guy -- but nothing could have prepared me for what it was. I really didn’t understand viscerally what I was getting myself into until that first makeup test, which took 5 1/2 hours. Once I was in it, I was instantly incredibly hot, incredibly cumbersome and incredibly uncomfortable, and it sent me into a sort of panic. For the first time in my adult life and career, the thought came across my mind, “I don’t think I can do this.” It really freaked me out.

How did you learn to cope with it?

Fortunately, the people around me, my wife, Michelle, director Tim Story and [special effects makeup supervisor] Mike Elizalde at Spectral Motion were all there to talk me down. My wife put me in touch with a psychiatrist because I really wanted to do this. I spoke with her a number of times, and she helped me tremendously in staying in the moment, staying present and staying connected to other people so I didn’t turn inside out.

How did you pass the time during makeup?

Thank God for the Boston Red Sox. The famed Yankee-Red Sox war and the World Series were playing almost every day I happened to be in the makeup chair. I’m a hardcore Red Sox fan, having been born, raised and educated in the Boston area. Being able to watch them saved my life. It was awesome.

Under all those layers of orange latex, can you see yourself in the Thing?

Yes. When you see still photographs it’s not as evident. But when you see the film in motion and you see me speaking and you see my eyes, I’m absolutely in there, and that was a huge issue for me. I didn’t want to be lost. Then it could just be anybody in there. The guys at Spectral Motion were incredibly sensitive to that, and I think they did a marvelous job in getting that across. It was very important that once you establish me in the first third of the movie as Ben Grimm, when I do change into the Thing, you see me in there and you see his dilemma when he wants to be himself again.

What was the hardest thing to make look natural when you were in costume?

Anything to do with my hands. My hands, which worked on a pulley system controlled by my fingertips, were incredibly difficult to manipulate.

There’s a scene with Julian McMahon [Victor Von Doom] in a cafe were I have to stir the sugar in my cup of coffee. It was a nightmare simply having to hold on to that little spoon with those huge fingers.

There’s also a scene on the Brooklyn Bridge where my fiancee puts her engagement ring on the ground. I’m supposed to bend down and pick it up, but I can’t because my hands are so bulky, and I end up clawing helplessly at it. That was actually a found moment in that it wasn’t actually scripted.

The difficulty you had with the costume raises the question, would you do it again if there were a sequel?

I’m going to cross that bridge when I get to it. Obviously one of the things that would need to happen is a reengineering of the costume. Spectral Motion did a great job in terms of creating the character for the screen, but the costume wasn’t built with the comfort of an actor in mind. If we did this again, I would have to get together with Mike Elizalde and do little things like making a zipper so that going to the potty wouldn’t be a 45-minute ordeal.

--Alex Chun