NEW MUTANTS Star Blu Hunt Reflects On The Immense Honor Of Playing A Native American Superhero - EXCLUSIVE

When Blu Hunt was initially cast as Dani Moonstar in The New Mutants, she was a relative unknown in the industry, with her most prominent credit being a guest spot on The CW's Vampire Diaries spinoff The Originals. Now, three years later, she's a promising up-and-coming actress who has much more experience to her name (Stumptown; Another Life) than the wide-eyed newcomer that first landed the part. 

Chatting with Hunt earlier this week, she spoke at length about what it was like to land her first big Hollywood leading role, and whether she would tackle it any differently if she got the part today now that she's a few years older and has the added benefit of hindsight, or if that was the perfect window in her life to play Dani.

"No, it was not the perfect time for me to take on a role that big. *laughs*

I think in a lot of ways, it was kind of perfect, because what I was going through as a person was what the character was going through too. Dani shows up somewhere, she’s intimidated, she’s confused, she’s going through changes, she’s completely overwhelmed, there’s things within herself that she hasn’t faced, but really needs to. She has her own demons and I was going through the same thing, just as Blu Hunt, so I think that parallel is there and I think that’s cool, but I definitely wish I could do it now or at least do it again, but better.

I would really love to do it again, I’m 25 now, so I’m still learning, but now that I know what making a movie is like, I can take a step back and understand how it works and what’s needed of you as an actor, psychologically, I wish I could come at it differently, but I try not to live my life with regrets."

While it's been sort of understated in the trailers and recent TV spots - which have instead opted to highlight the star power of Game of Thrones alum Maisie Williams and the sheer badassery of Anya Taylor-Joy's Magik - Dani Moonstar is really the true lead of The New Mutants. 

As a Native American, Dani is undoubtedly one of the most diverse characters to ever lead a superhero movie, and the honor of playing her was definitely a responsibility that Hunt didn't take lightly as she knew exactly what it meant to land such an life-altering part. 

She explains, "I remember before I went to make the movie, right after I had been cast, actually maybe even during the audition process, I remember kind of sitting on Twitter - I don’t have a Twitter anymore, I deleted it a couple years ago - and I remember just sitting on Twitter and reading about what everybody was saying about me, like “Oh my God.”

It was really hitting me and I was feeling so honored and excited for myself, always knowing I was mixed-race and always knowing being honest about that. There was a lot of talk between me and the producers and Josh about my background and I just wanted to be really honest and transparent, like this is exactly what my background is, this is who I am and having to ask myself “Am I the right person to play Dani?”

Talking to other indigenous people, it was a really big decision for me, do I even take this role? Is it right for me to take this role as a mixed race actress? Then, realizing that so many native people are mixed and they thought it was okay and they approved of me in the role."

Unfortunately, Hunt ran into some backlash from the darker corners of the internet, but thanks to the support of Josh Boone and her co-stars, she found a way to stay true to herself and play the part as honestly as she could 

She continues, "Showing up to set with that pressure though, wanting to do justice for how I represented her for the community was big for me, but to then realize that people I didn’t know didn’t like me or didn’t want me in the role. People that weren’t even Native American, it was mostly white people, which was kind of insane to me, and not because I hadn’t really acted in anything this big before, but people had never talked about me online anonymously before, so I didn’t really know how to deal with that. Now, I actually literally just do not care anymore.

I really just wanted to play Dani as myself, I remember when we did makeup and hair tests, I had short hair because I always have short hair, I just prefer it, but I remember really wanting to put extensions in and having the real long-haired Dani Moonstar look and Josh being like “No, we just want Dani to be you, who you are right now is fine,” and so I tried to approach it like that. If I’m just myself and I’m Native American and Dani’s Native American, and that will be what it is, if that makes any sense."

Stay tuned for more exclusive The New Mutants coverage!

20th Century Fox in association with Marvel Entertainment presents “The New Mutants,” an original horror thriller set in an isolated hospital where a group of young mutants is being held for psychiatric monitoring. When strange occurrences begin to take place, both their new mutant abilities and their friendships will be tested as they battle to try and make it out alive.