Michael Chiklis talked himself into a mind-blowing rubber suit as The Thing, Ioan Gruffudd stretches credibility as a Welsh-sounding US superhero, Jessica Alba speculates on what she would do with real invisibility and Chris Evans (No, the actor) wanted to work with the makers of Spiderman. Steve Pratt meets the Fantastic Four in the flesh.

THE Fantastic Four aren't feeling quite so fantastic today. Actors Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans (no, not the ginger-headed DJ, the American actor) have been touring the world promoting the film of Marvel's longest-running comic book series.

They're tired and nearly interviewed out but still answer the by-now familiar questions with good humour on the day of the London premiere.

The quartet play characters who acquire special powers are exposure to cosmic radiation during a space mission. Cardiff-born Gruffudd becomes Mr Fantastic, who can stretch his body into any shape imaginable; Alba's Sue Storm turns into the Invisible Woman; Evans, as her cocky brother Johnny becomes the Human Torch; and Chiklis, star of TV cop show The Shield, morphs into the Hulk-like superstrong The Thing.

Chiklis seems to have most difficulty adjusting to his new persona. Hardly surprising as his head and body are encased in a Thing-like body suit and prosthetic make-up that took three hours a day to put on each day - and half as long to take off again.

He had himself to blame as he'd suggested himself for the role as the only one of the four who was an avid Fantastic Four fan from childhood. "I used to go down to the corner store and get the comic. I was a big fan until I went to a convention and realised what big comic book fans were. They put the fan in fanatic. They really love it. It was a little bit daunting at first," he says.

"I've had multiple encounters with fans. A man about my age, dressed as The Thing, came up to me and that stunned me. I've had other emails and fan mail with really passionate questions and requests, saying, 'Please get it right'.

"We had really laboured over everything, particularly the look of The Thing. This was a topic from day one. We all agreed it shouldn't be computer generated but a person and, silly me, I was all for it.

"It turned out to be terribly arduous being in that costume. I believe we made the right choice because you want to see it's a human being in that body as there's a lot of pathos and humanity in Ben Grimm."

There was also pain, both mental and physical, before he felt comfortable in The Thing's crazy paving skin suit. In the beginning he felt the make-up was in control of him not vice versa. "The first few days were hard for me and I didn't expect it. I knew intellectually I was to wear the make-up but when the rubber meets the face, it's a whole different experience," he says.

"I've never been claustrophobic, but even I talked to a psychiatrist about it. I'm not an anxious person by nature, I'm kind of laid back. For me to have meltdown the first day I wore the make-up surprised me too."

He was aware that a lot of people were depending on him, not least the makers of The Shield who'd moved the schedules three-and-a-half months to enable him to do his Thing.

"I thought I couldn't do it. It took a few days for me to get used to it. Okay, I can breath, I can see, I can speak, I am all right. That became my mantra. It got better and better. These guys in the cast saved me because they were so patient."

HE discovered on the first day how much the prosthetics changed his expression, something that three days of make-up tests hadn't shown. "The first day of actual shooting I was on the rack, this board I rested on between shots, and I just had a neutral expression on my face. Director Tim Story came over to me and said 'What's the matter?'. It turns out that neutral in the Thing mask was like a grimace. I've never been a mirror actor, that looks in the mirror and does the lines. So I had to go back to the make-up trailer and spend some time getting to know the guy, and figure out how to make my emotions read. How much a wisp of a smile would read. And that made it a really fascinating actor process. It was my face but I had to amplify. A bizarre way to work, but really cool actually."

The companionship between the four helped get them through the demands of working with extensive special effects. "The first words I said to Ioan were, 'I think we're going to be friends for the next ten years'. Knowing this is going to be quite an odyssey we were in for, we needed to be a family," he recalls.

His words are echoed by Gruffudd: "The success of the film is that you believe these are a family of superheroes. I think this is testimony to our relationship off-screen that informs our relationship on screen.

"There was a lot of banter on the set because the process of making this sort of film can be quite tedious as it's so technically based."

Fantastic Four has opened well at the US box-office although reviews weren't all good. "It certainly seemed they were reviewing Wuthering Heights and not Fantastic Four," says Chiklis. "We went into it knowing we wanted to make a fun ride. Something for everyone to go to - family, friends, date, children, with a big barrel of popcorn and a soda, and have a ride for a night."

Stretch marks

* Fantastic Four (PG) opens in cinemas today and is reviewed on page 10

l The new series of The Shield begins on five on Saturday

Published: 21/07/2005