Ebon Moss-Bachrach has said that he would “throw fascists into space” if he were given the superpowers of his Fantastic Four character.
The 48-year-old actor, who rose to fame on the TV shows Girls and The Bear, plays the character of Ben Grimm, aka The Thing, in the Marvel blockbuster The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Moss-Bachrach was interviewed by IMDb alongside fellow cast members Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, and Joseph Quinn, when they were asked: “If you could borrow your character’s powers for one day, what’s the first thing you would do?”
In the film, Moss-Bachrach’s character is imbued with superhuman strength.
“There’s a handful of fascists that I would just throw into outer space,” the actor replied. “That’s what I would do.”
The remark prompted a cheer from Pascal, while Moss-Bachrach was subsequently praised by Fantastic Four fans when his unexpected answer went viral on social media.
“Ebon Moss-Bachrach was asked what he’d do if he had The Thing’s powers and he gave the most Ben Grimm answer possible,” one person wrote on X/Twitter. Another person wrote: “Always knew he was a good'un.”
While Moss-Bachrach did not specify who he meant by “a handful of fascists”, many on social media have interpreted the remark as a dig at the US right.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps was released in cinemas earlier this month. In a mixed three-star review, The Independent critic Clarisse Loughrey praised the performances of the four leads, while criticising other elements of the film.
“All the ingredients are perfectly lined up here, and, in the right combinations, and with the pure wonderment of Michael Giacchino’s score, The Fantastic Four: First Steps does shimmer with a kind of wide-eyed idealism. And that’s lovely,” she writes.
“Yet it’s unfortunate for Marvel that First Steps comes a few weeks after DC’s Superman. That movie had a single writer and director in James Gunn, and is so very Gunn-ish to its core. Here, you’ve got four credited writers and a director like Matt Shakman, who may have delivered similar earnestness-plus-Sixties-nostalgia with the TV series WandaVision, but who hasn’t yet developed a strong enough voice to anchor such an incident-packed picture.”
