Ralph Ineson: Harry Potter actor cast in major Fantastic Four role

Ralph Ineson will play Galactus in the upcoming Marvel superhero movie

Ralph Ineson has been cast to play Galactus, the central villain in Marvel’s forthcoming The Fantastic Four movie.

The Leeds-born actor, 54, first rose to fame playing the “bloody good” sales representative Chris Finch in the UK sitcom The Office.

His credits since then include appearances in the Harry Potter films as dark wizard Amycus Carrow, and the role of warrior Dagmer Cleftjaw in Game of Thrones.

He joins a star-studded cast that includes The Last of Us’s Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mr Fantastic, The Bear’s Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman and Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things) as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch.

Ozark’s Julia Garner will play Silver Surfer, while John Malkovich has also joined the film in an undisclosed role.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ineson’s Galactus will be the film’s primary antagonist. Galactus, who was created for Marvel comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, is an intergalactic being who eats the life force of planets.

Ralph Ineson at the Empire Awards in London in 2018 (Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)

In the comic books, he appeared as a towering human-like giant, but in 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer the character was portrayed as a CGI-generated cosmic cloud. This version of the villain, like the film itself, was largely poorly received.

That film, a sequel to 2005’s Fantastic Four, was produced by 20th Century Fox. The new The Fantastic Four will represent the first time the superhero team will join the interlinking Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

Disney’s Marvel Studios acquired the rights to the Fantastic Four in 2019 when the company merged with Fox.

WandaVision director Matt Shakman will helm the next iteration of the superhero team on the big screen.

Last November, news leaked that Pascal was “in talks” to lead the reboot. While earlier that year, Mila Kunis was forced to shut down rumours that she had been tapped to play Sue Storm.

Fans had also favoured John Krasinski and Emily Blunt to play Reed and Sue, respectively. Krasinski had played an alternate universe version of Mr Fantastic in the MCU’s 2021 Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

His version of the character, however, was killed off and Marvel subsequently insisted that Krasinski would not necessarily play the character within the main MCU timeline.

The original Fantastic Four comic books follow a group of scientists who develop superhero qualities after they are exposed to a mysterious cosmic storm.

The Fantastic Four is set to be released on 25 July 2025.