Stephen Moyer hopes 'X-Men' spinoff 'Gifted' inspires compassion in a polarized society

Nov. 5 (UPI) -- Stephen Moyer says he hopes his X-Men spinoff series The Gifted will inspire viewers to look at the world and those who inhabit it with a new perspective.

"What the X-Men world represents is what is fascinating to me," Moyer recently told reporters at New York Comic Con. "Written as a reaction to civil rights and how it has been adopted by marginalized groups is really important. I think it is very important at this time in society. We are living in a polarized society and if, in some, tiny way, we are able to make people sort of view things differently, then that's great, on top of a good, really fun piece of entertainment."

True Blood alum Moyer plays the prosecutor of super-powered mutants in the sci-fi drama, while Angel icon Amy Acker plays his wife, a nurse. The show opens with the couple learning their own teen son and daughter [played by Percy Hynes White and Natalie Alyn Lind] possess extraordinary gifts that put the whole family on the wrong side of the law.

Asked if they were X-Men aficionados before landing their roles on The Gifted, Acker laughed and said, "Well, he's lucky because he's married to one, so I feel like he wins automatically," referring to Moyer's real-life wife, Anna Paquin, who has appeared in several X-Men adventures on the big screen.

"I played a little catch-up here," Acker continued. "They gave us access to the online Marvel library, so we were able to go read some of the comics and I had seen a few of the movies, but went back and watched the rest of them to catch up, so I was definitely learning on the job."

"I was not an X-Men reader when I was young," Moyer said. "I was a Spider-Man [fan...] I remember when that first Tobey Maguire movie came out. Flying through the streets. I literally, viscerally had this flashback to being 8 years old and flying through the streets and that was all I was interested in."

The Gifted airs Monday nights on FOX.