Fantastic Four Actor Reveals How he Prepared to Play The Thing

Ebon Moss-Bachrach is playing The Thing in Marvel’s upcoming Fantastic Four movie, and he’s been hard at work preparing for the role.

The actor, who stars in FX’s The Bear , revealed his training methods to The Daily Show , and they’re far from conventional.

“Yeah, I’m playing Ben Grimm, who becomes The Thing, who’s a man encased in rock. So, I’ve just been looking at rocks.”

Clearly, it’s a joke. It’s not the only thing Moss-Bachrach’s been doing. In addition to his rock-glancing, he’s also been brushing up on his comic book knowledge.

“I’ve been reading a lot of comics. It’s kind of nice. They gave me this Marvel unlimited thing so I can go on my iPad and go on every comic Marvel’s ever released.”

Related: The Fantastic Four Cast: Every Actor Revealed So Far

That’s going to help with The Thing’s backstory. Maybe not as much as method acting with literal rocks, but it’s all useful. Although, if that’s how Moss-Bachrach prepares for his role playing a rock-man, it makes you wonder how Joseph Quinn is getting into the swing for playing the Human Torch. Maybe just staring intently into a fire?

Watch Moss-Bachrach talk about The Thing below at 8:05