Meet The Characters Of Marvel's The Gifted
The mutants on The Gifted may not be household names, but they do have a lot of ties to elements of Marvel comics going back to the days before the X-Men.
Entertainment Weekly has a rundown of the main characters on the show from executive producer Bryan Singer (X-Men, X2), complete with descriptions and explanations from showrunner Matt Nix (Burn Notice) and members of the cast.
The show centers on the Strucker family, who are sent on the run when it's revealed that both of the teenage kids have mutant abilities. Although those characters are all new, Nix teased that they're based on existing Marvel characters. "All I can say is if you're naming a show like this, you don't name a family 'Strucker' by accident," he said. "I didn't accidentally pluck that out of the air."
Comic book fans might recognize the name: Andrea and Andreas von Strucker are the twins known as Fenris, the children of Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, the longtime enemy of Nick Fury. However, the characters on The Gifted don't have the exact same backstory, as their dad is definitely not one of the leaders of HYDRA. Still, it does make a few things make sense.
The Gifted premieres Oct. 2 on FOX. Check out profiles of each of the characters below.
Reed Strucker (Stephen Moyer)
Reed is a district attorney who works on behalf of Sentinel Services, the government organization that hunts down mutants, when he learns that his own kids have superhuman powers. "He's hugely conflicted," Moyer said. "He's been doing what he thinks is right. In our world, it's not illegal to be a mutant, but it is illegal to use your powers in public. The thing that's been gnawing away at him—probably for a few years—is brought into focus."
Caitlin Strucker (Amy Acker)
Reed's wife Caitlin Strucker becomes fiercely protective of their children when she finds out that they're targets of Sentinel Services. She doesn't have any super powers of her own, but she quickly becomes something of an underground warrior while helping her kids on the run.
Lauren Strucker (Natalie Alyn Lind)
The elder Strucker child, Lauren seems to have everything going for her. But she also secretly has the ability to generate force fields. "Something we explored that's harder to explore in the movies is the idea of powers evolving with your emotional life," said Nix. "I liked the idea of Lauren having this power of pushing things together. What was interesting for the kids was not to just sit down and define their powers, like, 'Oh, Lauren makes shields.' Instead, it's, 'If this 17-year-old is trying to hide who she is and wants to protect herself from the world, the way that we could show that is with shields.' If she were another person, if she were somewhere else emotionally, maybe it wouldn't have been shields."
Andy Strucker (Percy Hynes White)
Andy, who realizes he has powers in the pilot episode, can use telekinesis to rip things apart. It's the opposite of his sister's ability, but he's still learning how it all works. "In reality, if you think about it, if you got mutant powers tomorrow, a mutant fairy doesn't show up on your shoulder and tell you what you have," Nix explained. "Like, you looked at the flowerpot, and it broke. Do you have blinking powers? Do you have flowerpot powers? What do you have? You don't know that until you develop it."
Eclipse (Sean Teale)
Eclipse is a new character, but he may be a relative of a character from the comics. He's a mutant who helps organize an Underground Railroad movement to keep other mutants away from Sentinel Services. He's able to manipulate photons and light, but he has a tortured past. "He's a boy that at a very young age is kicked out of the home," Teale said. "He was from a wealthy family but was forced to live in a cardboard box in Colombia, and to survive, he had to do a lot of things he isn't proud of... He's searching for family, he's searching for a place to belong and for the right to be a mutant. It's quite hard to find that. He's trying to do what's right."
Polaris (Emma Dumont)
Polaris is the estranged daughter of Magneto, and she shares her dad's abilities with magnetism. In the comics, she was one of the earliest members of the X-Men, but on The Gifted, she is dedicated to the Underground Railroad movement to save mutants. "She's difficult, and she has some family drama," Dumont said.
Thunderbird (Blair Redford)
A Native American and former Marine, Thunderbird is incredibly strong and able to track other mutants, which makes him the unofficial leader of the movement. He's very close with Eclipse and Polaris, but that can cause conflict. "Thunderbird inherently wants to do good and so does Eclipse, and Polaris to some degree might want to do the emotionally satisfying thing, and Eclipse gets torn between the two of those things," Teale said. "There's a fun dynamic between the three of them."
Blink (Jamie Chung)
An alternate version of the character that Fan Bingbing played in X-Men: Days of Future Past, Blink is able to create portals but she's still working on it. At the beginning of The Gifted, she's on the run until Thunderbird, Eclipse, and Polaris find her. "I like the idea of a mix of characters who are familiar to the fans, so we're not going in and saying, 'This has nothing to do with anything,'" Nix said. "[I thought about] what I was excited about as a fan, and I would be excited about seeing someone I've seen in the movies. I think it sends a message."
Agent Jace Turner (Coby Bell)
He's the villain of the show as he's after both the Struckers and the Underground Railroad mutants, but he's also doing what he thinks is right. "Agent Turner chases mutants, but there are mutants who are dangerous," Nix said. "The question is, 'How many rights do we legitimately take away from everyone in order to protect some interests?' Maybe the answer shouldn't be 'nothing,' and it shouldn't be 'everyone can do whatever they want,' but neither should the answer be 'let's lock them all away because someday they could conceivably be dangerous.' Neither one of those is a legitimate answer, so that's the balance that we're striking."
