“Twilight”-er Edi Gathegi Joins “X-Men: First Class”

Director Matthew Vaughn and producer Bryan Singer are trying to borrow some tent-pole magic, casting "Twilight" star Edi Gathegi in the role of Darwin, a little known bi-racial mutant with the power of "reactive evolution."

Gathegi, who played the dreadlocked vampire Laurent in the first two "Twilight" films, joins an "X-Men: First Class" cast that already includes James McAvoy as Professor Charles Xavier, Michael Fassbender as Magneto, Alice Eve as Emma Frost, Nicholas Hoult as Beast, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, Caleb Landry Jones as Banshee and Lucas Till as Havoc. The young heroes will do battle with an as yet unnamed villain played by Kevin Bacon. News of Gathegi's new gig was broken by Deadline, whose readers offered a mindbogglingly misguided and pointless discourse on the actor's skin tone as it relates to the role of Darwin.

Born Armando Munoz, it was a scientist that dubbed first dubbed him "Darwin, the Evolving Boy," for his ability to adapt his body to any situation. After a failed suicide attempt, Darwin was trained in controlling his powers by Moira Taggart before being recruited to join Xavier's X-Men.

We've never heard of Darwin before, but the kid clearly has some stuff to work out.

"X-Men: First Class" arrives June 3, 2011.

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