Some more from James McAvoy on X-Men: First Class here. As well as speaking about working with director Mathew Vaughn and his take on the iconic character of Charles Xavier, he plays up the bromance between he and Michael Fassbender's Erik Lensherr(Magneto) by comparing it to the original buddy movie..
GB: [Producer] Bryan Singer said many months ago that in his mind the story of the Charles and Erik friendship demanded to be the center of any prequel. Can you talk a bit about the physics of that friendship in this film?
JM: It’s kind of a love story, like “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” which, really, was a love story between two men. This is the first time in their lives they’ve met someone who is an equal of sorts, someone who understands them and can connect and push them too. Especially Charles, he’s fascinated with Erik and his potential. For Erik, Charles is the first person he’s trusted to really tell about his past and the first person to understand the horrible things he’s been through.
Ah I can't wait to hear the responses to this! "Wait, he just said Xavier and Magneto are gay lovers! FAIL". Anyway, McAvoy goes on to talk about his character and his relationship to Raven(Jennifer Lawrence), who will of course become the shape shifting Mystique..
"Charles is caught up in himself. He enjoys success and is proud, and he’s not the selfless person that he becomes. You look at the relationship with Raven – who becomes Mystique – and you examine that relationship and the way he treats her like a living experiment. She’s an assistant to him and he cares for her, but there’s his ego and condescending big-brother attitude as well. You see it in the way he treats the others. In the “later” movies, he’s exorcised that from his personality. For me, trying to keep that ego as an underpinning of the character is important."
Geoff Boucher then asks McAvoy what he thinks of Mathew Vaughn's earlier comments about Hollywood wringing the life out of the super hero movie..
"All fashions go around. At some point, the audience taste and stamina might be less, and then you see the cycle of fashion and it goes away for a while. I look at the Christian Bale movies, the Batman films, and that shows you that superhero movies don’t just have to be about men in tights. I think ‘The Dark Knight’ was really quite interesting, and if you can make movies that are that interesting, it sort of goes beyond fashion. You just try to be as good as you can and try not to get fired. Seriously, that’s a real threat with these superhero movies. People get fired all the time, and I don’t want to lose my job."
Finally, Boucher asks Mcavoy about a scene involving a water tank..
GB: It sounds like you had your hands full with the water-tank work here in L.A.?
JM: It was me saving Michael Fassbender’s … which is always fun. We worked together before, we met on “Band of Brothers,” which was my first TV job and probably his first or second. We both ride motorbikes, you know, scooters, around London, and every now and again, we’d pass each other and stop and give an old pump of the hand and slap on the back. He’s a lovely fellow.
It seems Magneto will be taking an unexpected swim at some point in the movie anyway. For the full interview be sure to click the link back to Hero Complex below.