Arizona-born actress Alexandra Shipp hit the big screen like a force of nature in X-Men: Apocalypse, playing a young and naïve Storm. In the superhero-stuffed prequel, she carved out a backstory for the character first played by Halle Berry in 2000’s X-Men. By the end of Apocalypse, the weather-bending mutant had been recovered from the malevolent brainwashing of the titular villain, and enrolled in Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Which should suggest Shipp will reprise the role the in-the-works sequel, reportedly set in the 1990s. But when Screen Rant sat down with her at SXSW to speak about the horror-comedy Tragedy Girls, Shipp was reluctant to confirm her return.
“I’m not too sure,” she told us in a shared interview with her Tragedy Girls co-star Brianna Hildebrand of Deadpool fame, “We haven’t gotten any info on that.” She explained the contract she signed for X-Men: Apocalypse allows for the option of her return, but not the guarantee. “When you sign on for a franchise, you definitely sign on for that,” she offered, before finishing the thought by singing with a smile, “But it’s all whatever Fox wants, Fox gets!”
But if young Storm returns, how would Shipp like to see her grow?
“I’d really love to see Storm coming into her matriarch form. In the last X-Men, she was very young and she had a different viewpoint. I’d love to see her take on more of a substantial role and really see her come into her own. I want to show how Halle got there. And to do that, I think we just need to show that evolution. And I’m all about a good character arc.”
Speaking of compelling character arcs, we asked Shipp and Hildebrand if there’d be any chance of young Storm and Negasonic Teenage Warhead sharing the screen in an X-Men movie. “That would be crazy,” Hildebrand declared. “That’d be awesome,” Shipp enthused, “The only thing is there’s like 30 years between our storylines.” Sure, but there’s also time travel employed when the need arises. So, it’s not impossible, right?
“You know the brand’s going to find a way to make it all merge into one some day,” Shipp teased. “That would be really awesome. That’d be really fun to fight each other or fight a villain of some sort together. But who knows.”
Next: What Simon Kinberg Learned From X-Men: Apocalypse
Look for more from our interview with Hildebrand and Shipp later this week.
