Michael Chiklis on The Senior, Tough Characters, and Fantastic Four’s The Thing

When asked what drew him to the football drama The Senior, veteran actor Michael Chiklis doesn’t mince words with his answer.

“Look, all we do as actors is look for great stories,” Chiklis tells Den of Geek. “You know how movies say ‘Based on a true story?’ This isn’t based on a true story, this is a true story.”

Such earnest candor should be no surprise to anyone familiar with the veteran actor. Across a career that stretches back to guest appearances on Miami Vice and playing John Belushi in the biopic Wired in 1989, Chiklis has portrayed everything from a corrupt cop on The Shield, for which he won a Best Actor Emmy, to a carnival strong man on American Horror Story: Freak Show to Marvel’s ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Thing in Fantastic Four and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

In The Senior, Chiklis plays Mike Flynt, who joined the Sul Ross State Lobos at the age of fifty-nine, making him then the oldest person to ever play college football. Directed by Rod Lurie and written by Robert Eisele, The Senior is a well-executed crowd-pleaser that emphasizes verisimilitude, which is exactly what attracted Chiklis to the project.

“When you read a script, you’re looking for the elements of great storytelling: conflict, something a person is trying to overcome, resolution, all of that,” Chiklis explains. “All of that’s in The Senior. It’s just about a guy who wants to redeem himself for past mistakes.”

Even when talking about these big, universal themes, Chiklis cannot help but frame them in relatable terms. “I don’t think there’s a person alive who hasn’t thought about things that they did when they were a kid or a young adult and just face-palmed,” he chuckles. “They think, ‘I wish I had a second take at that, I wish I could go back and redo that.'”

For Chiklis, it’s that relatability that allows The Senior to appeal to everyone—even readers of a site called Den of Geek, he lovingly chides. “Mike’s decision to go out to play isn’t about him redoing football. It’s about being to help the kids that he doesn’t even know yet on this football team. It’s about helping them grow up and become young men.”

Chiklis knows that such themes connect with people, because he draws from his own life, both in the past and in preparing for the film. “I have to say, some of the greatest lessons I’ve ever had in my life came from coaches on my high school football team,” Chiklis recalls, before pointing out that he underwent an experience similar to that of Flynt. “At age 59, I get to go back and play college football with a bunch of 20-somethings?” he laughs, “Man, I didn’t think that would ever happen, that’s for sure.”

However, the actor’s also quick to point out that he only had a taste of what Flynt did, not the real thing. “Flynt was off-camera during the whole shoot, every day,” reveals Chiklis. “It was daunting, but he also ended up being a great resource because I could go to him and ask, “Hey Mike, what did you do when this happened?'”

Chiklis’s appreciation for Flynt only compounded as they shot the football scenes, most of which were performed by the actor. “There were like three or four shots that I didn’t do and that’s why I marvel at Mike, because there were times I could say to the stuntman, ‘Hey, you take this hit.’ I watched him really get his clock cleaned and I thank God I didn’t do those shots because I’m 59,” he says laughing.

“But Mike did this and he didn’t have a stuntman. It’s unbelievable what the punishment that he took. We were playing twelve hours a day, so it wasn’t lightweight. I was playing, I was sprinting, I was running the bleachers. I’m very proud of being to get through all of that and get to point where I could hear the words, ‘Michael, you’re wrapped!’ And nothing broke!” Chiklis exclaims.

Of course, playing guys who go through plenty of punishment and still don’t break is what Chiklis does best. And in that way, he doesn’t see too much difference between the essentially good-hearted Mike Flynt and his most celebrated character, dirty cop Vic Mackey of The Shield.

“These kinds of characters with varying degrees of goodness have always appealed to me, because we all possess different qualities. Unfortunately, we’re all capable of heinous things, but we’re also capable of divinity and amazing things. Those dichotomies make for interesting characters.”

Mike Flynt may not go to the extremes of some of the heavies that Chiklis has portrayed, but he has his own internal conflicts, owing to the toxic masculinity impressed upon him by his abusive father (James Badge Dale), a toxicity that sometimes separates him from his wife (Mary Stuart Masterson) and his academically minded son (Brandon Flynn).

“Here’s a guy who’s revisiting the violence of his father on the people around him. He want’s to break that chain, but he doesn’t know how to do it. That makes The Senior a redemption tale, because Mike’s the kind of guy you root for. You don’t want to see him spiral out and fail. And I think this movie does it in a real entertaining way, where even I’m in the theater shouting, ‘Go, go, go!'”

Anyone watching Chiklis play a man who overcomes adversity in The Senior might also wonder about another hero the actor portrayed, one who recently appeared again in a different form in The Fantastic Four: First Steps. While Ebon Moss-Bachrach has fully established himself as the current Thing in the MCU, we’ve already seen Chiklis’s castmate Chris Evans return as Johnny Storm in Deadpool & Wolverine. Given the many other returns in Avengers: Doomsday, will Chiklis turn into orange rock once again?

“I get asked this a lot and I can’t say never, but I haven’t been asked,” Chiklis reveals with a bit of resignation in his voice. But then he perks up with one more declaration. “I never say never, so you know”—and here his voice turns rough and rocky—”It could be clobberin’ time!”

The Senior opens in theaters across the country on September 19, 2025.