LOS ANGELES _ The majority of actors count the number of lines they have in a script. It's a way of measuring just how important their character is to the production.
Anson Mount, star of the new ABC series "Marvel's Inhumans," counts his lines but not for the same reason as other actors. He's always thought that it was better to have fewer lines, as that pushes him harder to get across the emotions of a scene without words. He often would go through the script of his last series, "Hell on Wheels," and mark through lines he didn't think were necessary.
Being cast as Black Bolt in the new series based on Marvel Comics characters is the ultimate test of his acting skills because the character never utters a single word. A whisper from Black Bolt can level a large chunk of a city.
The situation isn't as quietly wonderful as it might sound. Despite having no lines to speak, Mount's approach to playing the character is really not that different than if he had long speeches to present.
"I still have to memorize lines and I still have lines, I just don't say them with my mouth. Then I have to translate my lines into a language I had to invent," Mount says during an ABC party. "The next thing I have to do is get it into the muscle memory of my body so I can focus on the scene when I am doing it and not thinking about myself the whole time."
Mount compares learning the new language to learning to ride a horse. Eventually, getting in the saddle will feel very natural but that doesn't happen without long hours of rehearsing and practice.
How he "speaks" as Black Bolt, the ruler of world of the Inhumans, is through his wife, Medusa (Serinda Swan), whose super power is that she can use her long read hair as a weapon. Mount created his own kind of sign language to get across what he's supposed to be saying as Black Bolt and then emails Swan videos of how each word will be shown through his movements.
Getting the videos allows Swan to deliver her lines while watching Mount signing out of the corner of her eye.
"We've matched them up, perfect timing," Swan says. "So if you do have a linguist out there that loves this sort of stuff, you'll notice that the words actually match, the timing matches. You'll see the same words. You'll see the same signs."
All this work is to tell the story of Black Bolt, Medusa and the other members of the royal family after a military coup is launched by Black Bolt's brother, Maximus (Iwan Rheon). The group barely escapes to Hawaii where they must interact with humans who are friendly and not-so-friendly around people with special powers. They have been monitoring events like those in the ABC series "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." where those with mutant powers are being hunted.
Mount comes to the series with a long list of credits including roles in "Line of Fire," "Conviction," "Third Watch," "The Mountain" and "Dollhouse." All that work has helped him understand that with every good TV series, the protagonist has an internal journey that matches the show's external journey.
"Where I am starting with Black Bolt is that he's a leader who has mistaken his need to be calculated and secretive with emotional removal. He hasn't realized that's a mistake," Mount says.
The journey Black Bolt and the rest of the Inhumans will take starts with the comic book characters introduced in 1965 in issue number 45 of Marvel's "Fantastic Four" created by comic book legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The trip will be quick as ABC has ordered eight episodes that will run before giving up its time slot to the fifth season of "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."
Even before Mount started to create the language for his character, he started researching Black Bolt and the Inhumans by reading stacks of comic books and graphic novels featuring the characters. This is the kind of research Mount has done for every role he's played.
"I will tell you this, it was a lot more fun to read than histories of the transcontinental railroad," Mount says referring to his preparations for "Hell on Wheels." "Marvel's Inhumans" is light years away from his last series as he goes from a gritty western shot on locations to a super hero story that will include a lot of computer generated people, places and things.
"I've never worked around so many imaginary elements and it's a skill that you develop," Mount says. "You just have to be cognizant of certain things. You have to be good at building the specifics for yourself, particularly like, if Lockjaw isn't actually here and my point of focus isn't where he's supposed to be, but it's on the back wall, you're going to see that, and it doesn't come off. But it was a fun obstacle. There were a lot of fun obstacles with this role."
As for landing a role in the ever growing world of TV shows and films based on Marvel Comics, Mount smiles and says that he had always wanted to play Gambit (a role that Channing Tatum is slated to play) because he likes the character. He doesn't think about franchises or genres but prefers to just concentrate on doing the best acting job he can � even if he's playing a character who does speak.
