In 2005, Michael Chiklis, best known at that time for playing Vic Mackey on The Shield, starred as Benjamin Grimm, a.k.a. The Thing, in Fantastic Four. Despite that movie and its sequel being panned by critics, Chiklis looks back fondly on his time in the Marvel film series. However, while working on that first movie, he nearly quit playing The Thing due to getting claustrophobia so bad that a psychiatrist had to get involved.
Michael Chiklis joined his Fantastic Four co-star Ioan Gruffud, who played Reed Richards, a.k.a. Mister Fantastic, for the “Back to the Baxter Building” panel at New York Comic Con (via Variety). He kicked off the panel by sharing how it took five hours for the movie’s costume team to transform him into The Thing, and wearing the suit quickly made him claustrophobic. As he explained:
