'Fantastic Four' Cast Handles Offensive Interview Like Pros

Why are these questions being asked in the first place?

While making press rounds for their upcoming film "Fantastic Four," Michael B. Jordan and Kate Mara fielded a series of cringeworthy questions on the "Rock 100.5 Morning Show" in Atlanta on Thursday.

Host Jason Bailey first asked what he claimed was an "obvious" question about how the two actors' characters, Johnny and Sue Storm, could logically be brother and sister, as they have been in previous iterations of the story. When the actors confirmed they were, he pushed on in utter confusion -- "But you're white and you're black. How does that happen?" -- until Jordan, much like he did when faced with similar questions on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," stepped in to explain basic reality.

"They could be raised as brother and sister. I mean, there's a whole bunch of different family dynamics that could be without the 'obvious' adoption."

With that line of questioning exhausted, Steven J. Rickman ("Southside Steve") then piped in to inappropriately discuss Mara's haircut and hotness level.

"You're way, way hot," he said. "Why'd you cut the hair? Your hair was beautiful."

He continued past the actor's polite response, closing off the "scrutinizing Mara's appearance" chapter of the interview with choice words: "I'm a toe guy. Your toes are fine."

Mara, and likely anyone listening, replied simply: "Wow."

Bailey responded to BuzzFeed's inquiry about whether the questions were meant to be incendiary in a two-paragraph defense, published in full on their site.

"You have a white sister and black brother wouldn’t you want to know how that happened?" he wrote. "I did. The other 'Fantastic Four' franchises explain the relationship so I figured with this new hipster version they’d have some different backstory."

Back in May, Michael B. Jordan responded to Internet trolls saying a black man can't play Johnny Storm in an essay in Entertainment Weekly:

People are always going to see each other in terms of race, but maybe in the future we won’t talk about it as much. Maybe, if I set an example, Hollywood will start considering more people of color in other prominent roles, and maybe we can reach the people who are stuck in the mindset that “it has to be true to the comic book.” Or maybe we have to reach past them.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this piece incorrectly stated that Steven J. Rickman posed the question about how Johnny and Sue Storm could be brother and sister.

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