Bryan Singer Talks X-Men: First Class' Azazel, Havok, Mystique And More!

On 2011 competition, “You can never think about that,” producer Bryan Singer said. ”That’s just something you can torture yourself with or stress out about, but you can’t do that and sit there and think, ‘What are they doing? We need to do that.’ That’s the worst thing you can do. You have to make your own movie. It needs to exist in its own universe in terms of perception. Your goal is to make a cool movie. You need to stay focused on that goal.”

When reminded of the prequel's fairly different line-up from the comics,“We have younger versions of Mystique and Beast, so I’m very excited about them and what they bring to the film. Jennifer Lawrence’s work [as Mystique] and Nicholas Hoult’s portrayal of Beast — these are characters that we’ve seen in the earlier films, but then these are very different portrayals and you have to bring a lot of attention to those.”

“I’m also excited about Jason Flemyng as Azazel, which is really cool character. It’s like this sinister alter ego of Nightcrawler in a way, which again brings some of the things that we like about that character but at the same time has a different quality. And I really, really like [Lucas Till as] Havok, who we’re bringing in [to the continuity] at a sort of a different time, relative to the comic book lore. It’s an extremely cool character. What’s great, too, about all of these characters is that they haven’t honed their abilities yet. Havok is a danger to himself and everyone around him. That’s where this movie is at — the recruiting of these mutants and bringing them together.”

When questioned of Havok & Cyclops' "brother" relation, “Yes, the time line is different,” Singer said. “It wouldn’t physically fit for him to be the brother of Cyclops. We take some liberties on that. There are notions, but, um, I don’t want to give away certain interrelations, but let’s just say there are some things that do adhere to the comic books and do so in a way the fans will get a kick out of. And those things can, perhaps, move forward into the future…. That’s one reason we wanted to call the film ‘First Class’ even though it isn’t the [Jeff Parker-penned story arc called] ‘First Class’ in the comics as fans know it. You couldn’t really tell that story without going even earlier and explaining how they got there and how it came to be. I liked the title, so we kept it, but this is a prelude in a way that will eventually lead to the [scenarios] that fit in more clearly with the ‘First Class’ comics and situations.”