John Malkovich is set to make his Marvel debut as a mystery character in this summer’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” but it wasn’t the first Marvel role the Oscar nominee has been offered over the years. The actor revealed an interview with GQ magazine that he’s turned down a few Marvel offers in the past because the pay just wasn’t sufficient enough.

“The reason I didn’t do them had nothing to do with any artistic considerations whatsoever,” Malkovich said. “I didn’t like the deals they made, at all. These films are quite grueling to make… If you’re going to hang from a crane in front of a green screen for six months, pay me. You don’t want to pay me, it’s cool, but then I don’t want to do it, because I’d rather be onstage, or be directing a play, or doing something else.”

What Malkovich was surprised to discover was that filming “The Fantastic Four” was “not that dissimilar to doing theater” because “you imagine a bunch of stuff that isn’t there and do your little play.” He told GQ that he took a role in the movie primarily because he wanted to work with director Matt Shaman again after 2014’s “Cut Bank.”