Sebastian Shaw appears in X-Men: First Class, portrayed by Kevin Bacon. This version possesses the additional ability to utilize kinetic energy as sustenance, maintain his youth and life, and fire energy blasts. Additionally, he is fluent in English, German, French, and Russian and previously operated as Nazi scientist Klaus Schmidt during World War II, during which he attempted to experiment on a young Erik Lehnsherr to tease out his mutant abilities. Sometime after the war, Shaw went on to acquire a helmet from the Soviet Union capable of blocking telepaths' powers and became the leader of the Hellfire Club in the hopes of exploiting the Cuban Missile Crisis to incite World War III in a Darwinian plot to accelerate the emergence of mutants. Ultimately, he is foiled by Moira MacTaggert 's Division X and killed by Lehnsherr, who takes the helmet for himself and unites the Hellfire Club's remnants under his leadership.