What are Logan's stakes, personally, in this film?
Ha, everything. For all the X-Men, including my character, everything's at stake. I'd say the danger levels are the highest they've ever been in this movie. It's certainly the greatest threat or villain they've faced. So for everyone involved, the stakes couldn't be higher. It's as dangerous as it gets for all of them.
This is a continuation of the franchise, so in a way we're combining two X-Men worlds. I don't know how much you've been told... I don't know how much there's been mentioned of the timeline... So when it starts, Wolverine's very much part of the group, and I know that's not always been the case.
When Logan goes back in time, do we see a 1973 version of Logan?
Can you tell the grey hairs have been slightly taken out of my beard? He does. There's a misconception that Wolverine doesn't age at all, but obviously he does - it's just at a much, much slower rate because he heals. So for the makeup artist, it takes a little more work for her in the morning [Laughs].
Logan's relationship with Charles was really important in the earlier films, and I'm sure working with Patrick [Stewart] was important to you as an actor. Can you talk about meeting the young Charles, and how McAvoy changes that for you?
Such a great question. Because Wolverine really went under a massive change by missing Professor Xavier. He was pretty lost. He was on his own, and pretty rudderless, really. He was wandering around with a lot of unanswered questions, a lot of anger. That guidance really changes him and helps him grow. So it's such a great concept, this idea that you can send your mind back to your younger body, the idea that you can go back not only for yourself, but with the benefit of wisdom, knowing what a person's going to become.
You go back and find a younger Charles Xavier, perhaps, in a more vulnerable place, a slightly less wise place, a difficult place where I can play the role for him that he would later play for me. It's poignant, and beautifully brought out in the script.
Building from that, what is your dynamic with Ian McKellen? Because before you were opposed, but in the future world Magneto is essentially one of the X-Men.
We're brought together by a greater calamity than our own differences. But the animosity's still there, and we're certainly playing off of it - not between me and Ian at all, but between the characters. I think that's fun. Just because we're in the same family now, it doesn't mean we get on together. But when you have to unite against a greater foe, you're forced to come together.
What's always been great about X-Men is that it's not all happy endings or peace, love and understanding. Even when they're together, people are grumpy with each other, they fight, they bicker and disagree. They have faults and shortcomings. I think that's what Bryan always envisioned, and thought out really well.
How do you connect The Wolverine to Days Of Future Past?
It does actually come together very well. There is a link, and it has been thought through. All I can say is, The Wolverine follows X-Men 3, so imagine that as two years afterwards. So everything that happened there was fresh for Wolverine. Which is why at the beginning of that movie, he's very much at a loss and disillusioned. So I'll let you put two and two together over how he comes out at the end of that movie.
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X-Men Days of Future Past hits theaters May 23, 2014.