‘The Gifted’ – Natalie Alyn Lind and Percy Hynes White Interview on Playing Mutants

The Gifted stars Natalie Alyn Lind and Percy Hynes White
Natalie Alyn Lind and Percy Hynes White star in ‘The Gifted’ (Photos by Ryan Green © 2017 Fox Broadcasting Co)

Natalie Alyn Lind (‘Lauren Strucker’) and Percy Hynes White (‘Andy Strucker’) play mutants in the new Fox series, The Gifted, set to premiere on October 2, 2017. The series takes place in the X-Men universe and in addition to Lind and White, stars Stephen Moyer (‘Reed Strucker’), Amy Acker (‘Caitlin Strucker’), Sean Teale (‘Eclipse’/’Marcos Diaz’), Jamie Chung (‘Blink’/’Clarice Fong’ aka ‘Clarice Ferguson’), Coby Bell (‘Jace Turner’), Emma Dumont (‘Polaris’/’Lorna Dane’), and Blair Redford (‘Thunderbird’/’John Proudstar’).

Teamed up at the 2017 San Diego Comic Con to discuss the show’s first season, Lind and White shared details on their characters while attempting not to give away any spoilers.

Both of your characters have powers?

Natalie Alyn Lind: “My character when we start off the show she is a teenager going through every day teenage stuff. But what you realize as the series continues is that she is actually a mutant and has known that she’s a mutant for years and has kind of kept it to herself for years because she doesn’t want to tell anybody in her family or her friends because people see mutants as threats, as weirdos, as these weird people that just need to be separated from everybody.

And our father in the show, Reed Strucker, he is a mutant prosecutor. He likes to take mutants and put them in jail and put them in this detention center that you never get out of. So, when she finds out she has powers she keeps it on the low until something happens with her brother, Andy, where her powers kind of manifest and have to come out and show the world that she’s secretly a mutant. Which I actually like – I don’t know why she didn’t like it! But, yeah, I think being a mutant would be pretty cool.”

Is this revealed in the first episode?

Percy Hynes White: “Yeah.”

Natalie Alyn Lind: “It’s actually revealed in the trailer. That’s the only reason I can say that. Doing interviews like this is extremely difficult because I don’t want to get in trouble. (Laughing) I want to keep my job.”

I’d imagine standing up to a bully feels terrific. But when you have these powers is it sort of damned if you, damned if you don’t?

Percy Hynes White: “Yeah. It’s very easy for it to escalate out of control and for the revenge to turn into something that’s like… It just turns into my fault.”

Natalie Alyn Lind: “Especially when you don’t know how to use your powers.”

Percy Hynes White: “Totally. Andy can’t control it, especially at first. I think once he learns to control his powers, he’s going to make better decisions on how to use them.”

Natalie Alyn Lind: “Or bad decisions and take down the entire world.”

Percy Hynes White: “You never know.”

What was it like working with Bryan Singer?

Percy Hynes White: “Cool. He’s a cool guy.”

Natalie Alyn Lind: “I think it’s really cool because he has such an eye, and he’s obviously such a part of the X-Men universe and understands it better than anyone. Him and Derek (Hoffman) and Lauren (Shuler Donner) – they’re all a part of this universe. This is what they’ve been in for years. So really bringing their eye into our pilot is incredible because everything you see, it’s very similar to the movies but we have our own spin on it. It’s different but you still have that comic book eye, that comic book feel to it. It’s really cool.”

How intense are the action scenes for you?

Natalie Alyn Lind: “I think one of the cool parts about our show is that lot of the stuff that you see on screen, like for the first episode, we never once used a stunt double for any of us, I think. I know I didn’t have a stunt double.”

Percy Hynes White: “I almost popped a vessel in my eye, I had to do so much screaming. My power is screaming. I have to go, ‘Ahhhhhhhhhh!’”

Natalie Alyn Lind: “For the last two months I’ve been in stunt training. One of the first things I told Matt (Nix), our showrunner, is that I want to be able to do as much as I can. I’ve been in stunt training the last two months just trying to…”

Percy Hynes White: “I’ve been in couch training the last two months.”

Do you know what the differences are between your television characters and the comics?

Natalie Alyn Lind: “We are a family of secrets and we cannot reveal anything. […] As the series continues, our characters will develop. If you are a fan of the comics, the Struckers do exist. I’m not going to say that they don’t. If we have any association with them…maybe, maybe not. You’ll just have to watch the series and find out.”

Watch the full Natalie Alyn Lind and Percy Hynes White The Gifted interview:

(Interview by Fred Topel. Article by Rebecca Murray.)