Erik (The Phantom of the Opera) In the 2004 film adaptation of the musical, Erik's makeup was made to look much less gruesome than previous adaptations of the story. Instead of a skull-like face, his disfigurement resembles that of a mildly malformed face, which he covers with the mask. Film critic Roger Ebert noted that Butler was more "conventionally handsome" than his predecessors "in a GQ kind of way". Onscreen, Erik has often been cast as a tragic hero but also a tragic villain, depending on the film's point of view. "See main list: The Phantom of the Opera" Erik (The Phantom of the Opera) Erik
Erik (The Phantom of the Opera) finally confronts the Phantom, he claims that he cannot speak without his mask, as his mother forced him to wear it whenever he wished to speak as a child, and he is not Edouard LaFosse. Holmes therefore admits that he is not sure how true any of the theories or claims of the Phantom's identity are. The Phantom never provides a given name in the novel; he only tells Christine that his name is "Nobody" (a reference to the name Odysseus gave Polyphemus in the "Odyssey"). Regardless of his identity, the Phantom in "The Canary Trainer" is much more unhinged