Newcomer Blu Hunt Joins Fox’s ‘New Mutants’ as Danielle Moonstar

After a lengthy international search, the last, and possibly most important, New Mutant has finally been cast. Blu Hunt, a relative newcomer to Hollywood, has been cast as the telepathic Danielle Moonstar, whose Native American heritage is a huge part of the classic New Mutants storyline the movie is rumored to be drawing from.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Blu Hunt, who is part Native American herself, had appeared in a few episodes of The Originals before Fox found her and decided to cast her in New Mutants. Moonstar has the power to create illusions based on the fears in the minds of people around her, and is perhaps the most crucial character for the movie. THR’s sources say that New Mutants will draw from the comics’ “Demon Bear” plot, which centers on a demonic bear created by corrupting the animal spirits of Moonstar’s parents.

Fox made ethnicity of prime importance in their casting, which is maybe why it took so long to find Hunt. (Then again, even the Twilight movies could find a bunch of Native American actors to play the wolf shapeshifters.) New Mutants, according to THR, “will tell of five diverse teens learning to cope with their superpowers who must escape a secret facility where they are being held against their will,” and will be going for more of a horror-thriller feel, which already sounds terrific.

New Mutants will begin production in July.