Pic from Comics Continuum
Visimag's Xpose 2/02 Forbes March interview, on Unofficial Forbes
No Tights Please, I'm a Superhero
Xpose #64 - February 2002
Forbes March tells Bryan Cairns why he's glad Mutant X's Jesse Kilmartin gets to ditch the lycra tights.
In this role as Mutant X's Jesse Kilmartin, actor Forbes March has the incredible ability to control his body's molecular structure, allowing him to become super-dense and invulnerable, or intangible and untouchable. But the characters powers almost put him off auditioning for the role. Jesse was originally slated to split into three separate bodies with three distinct personalities, and March was sure how to read for the role. With television gearing up for its pilot season and other potential parts piling up, the 28 year old actor decided to blow the Mutant X audition off. That is, until his acting coach gave him a loud verbal lashing along with some useful tips on how to approach the script.
"In my audition for Jesse, he split into three characters, which is a great idea and a lot of fun to play," explains March. "On camera, that is, when you can shoot one character, change your clothes get into character for another guy, learn your new lines, and then do it again. But in an audition situation, you're sitting in this steel folding chair in the middle of a perfectly white room with some casting director who's looking at you like you're #374 and there's another 57 to come before she gets her next coffee break. And I was supposed to carry on this conversation with myself."
Yet somehow, March pulled it off as he explained on the Mutant X set in Toronto. Dressed in a black t-shirt and khaki paints, the laid-back Canadian is every bit as amicable and humorous as his character, the neglected, unloved son who's turned against his corrupt father by joining the Mutant X group.
"I think he feels a bit of responsibility to come out and do some good," comments March. "He also resents the fact his mutantcy has been this bad thing in the family and he hasn't been accepted, so he wants to stand up for himself. It's a story of redemption, like for most of the characters."
To prepare for their roles, the entire ensemble cast was enrolled in a three week 'boot camp', which included wire work, martial arts, and gymnastics. These skills came in handy, especially in March's case since Jesse can become light enough to fly, allowing him to bounce off walls and do triple ninja flips in the air. At the opposite side of the spectrum, when he's rock solid, Jesse can be dropped from the air with the impact of a human meteorite. Although the lessons left March sore and bruised ("I'm still bleeding right now," he jokes), the physical challenge wasn't his greatest concern. Instead, the thought of tight fitting second skin costumes had his mind reeling and another part of his anatomy cringing.
"Yep, I think we were all worried simultaneously, because apparently we all called the producer on the same day saying 'Are we gonna be wearing spandex?'" chuckles March. "'If so, we might have to negotiate our contracts! How much am I gonna charge you to put me in spandex for the next nine months.' We were really glad that we're not in that because I don't really like walking around with, you know, my 'boys' hanging all over the set. You can just imagine the crew - they'll kill you."
In fact, March adds, those colorfully snug threads turned him off comics as a kid, but fortunately Jesse frequently swaps his costume for some designer black leather pants.
"I think the clothes make it more relatable," he explains. "To me, the whole idea of a superhero is that he's a normal guy. That's what appeals to us - we all see ourselves as heroes. Then comics dress them up with little horns coming out of their heads and those funny wrestling sneakers. That's not me. I was more interested in the military guys."
Superhero actor is undeniably a major part of Mutant X, but perhaps because of his background as a model March is more interested in finding new depths to the drama field, and cites a recent confrontation with Adam as one of his favorite scenes, since it was more of a 'character piece'.
Born and raised in Vancouver, March was selling watches door-to-door for $10 each, earning a meager $1.25 profit for himself, when his big break into modeling came as he stumbled into a talent agency. Intrigued, he gave them a call, signed up for acting classes, and was immediately enthralled. A week later, he starred in his first commercial which "pain and obscene amount of cash for a day". More commercial work led to a stint on the Canadian produced show Northwood, before an agent from Italy discovered him and flew him out to Europe for a campaign where his first experience of a runway shoot proved an interesting assignment. "On my first runway shoot. I though I'd made it, before they gave me this feather boar, a cigarette holder, and stiletto heels," chuckles March. "I was going 'I'm doing this all wrong."
He must have been doing something right, though, as March went on to model for such bigwigs as Armani and Tommy Hilfiger before returning to TV land as the hunky heartthrob Scott Chandler on the soap opera All My Children. The role not only built him a fan base, but delivered a second memorable blooper incident.
"I was doing this love scene on a soap opera and we're supposed to be rolling around a lot in bed, and by accident I flipped her off the bed and into a wall. It was a sound stage wall and it fell over!" recalls March. "We're in our underwear, in this bed with no more sheets and the crew was just dying."
So far, his work on Mutant X has been relatively free of such red-faced moments, but with a two-season run of 44 episodes already ordered there's plenty of time. As the cast and crew settle in for the long haul, Marvel is capitalizing on the show's success by launching a Mutant X comic book penned by the shows head writer Howard Chaykin. However, no everyone is so thrilled, as you might guess from March's earlier comments about comics. For March, becoming a screen superhero is one thing, but being immortalized as a four-color mutant is another.
"It's a really cool thing, but on the other hand, I'm an absolutely normal guy and trying very hard to stay that way under really kick-ass circumstances," he explains. "When I see stuff like that, I get paranoid and fearful people are going to think that's how I see myself, that I deserver to be a comic book superhero. But I just want to go out with old friends from high school and drink beers. I mean, it's the ultimate, but."
So comic book fame isn't what March wants. But given the chance what would he chance about his comic book clone? Better powers? More action? More chicks? After a few seconds of silence, he gets up and gives an answer that would have Boogie Nights' Dirk Diggler grinning.
"Well, you know." giggles March while motioning towards his private parts, "men all want more down here. They're free to extrapolate. Writers, pad away! They're free to expand all they want in that department. Nahhh, they can do whatever they want. They just have to make us funny and have people laughing."
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