James McAvoy Shares His Thoughts On X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST
James McAvoy is the latest to be interviewed as part of Collider's exclusive X-Men: Days of Future Past reveal today. Come see what he has to say about meeting Patrick Stewart's future Professor X, his hair, and more!
Collider has posted quite a few X-Men: Days of Future Past exclusives today, come check out their interview with the young Professor X, James McAvoy.
He begins the interview by saying that while the film is about an ensemble of characters, the biggest character journey in the film might be his own. His character will change the most from beginning to end. He says he wanted to make his character a bit more extreme than he was in the previous film. "When I first took over the part, I was only able to do that to a certain extent, because the film is about Michael’s journey, really. As much as I had a great part and I helped facilitate that – it was like a buddy movie and stuff, I had nice stuff to play – it was ultimately his narrative. In this one, it feels a little different in that I can go further with the extremity of it. I can go further with the extremity from what Patrick did, but also from what I did in the last movie, too." He goes on to say that we'll find Charles in a lot of pain, not just physical, but pain brought on by being abandoned by Erik and Raven. He will have lost his ability to empathize, which McAvoy believes was Xavier's true greatest power. He also reaffirms that this is will be an extremely intense film, a lot more so than X-Men: First Class.
He briefly describes his scene with Patrick Stewart: "It was my first day and their last day. We just did it. It was quite a simple scene, really, in terms of—When you have two people who have the same person at different times in their life, checking each other out, it’s like… You don’t want to get in the way of it too much, with too much blocking, or too much moving around even. You just want to have us face to face, in a kind of… Not to get too sort of Federation about it, but to be in a nexus, you know what I mean? Almost a void space. It isn’t a void space. It’s not like just a black studio with a white light coming from somewhere. But you just want it to be those people’s faces, studying each other."
When comparing his portrayal of Charles Xavier to Patrick Stewart's, McAvoy said: "I don’t do anything that Patrick does, really. Which is the whole point for me. I think maybe toward the end of a third movie, if we make a third movie, the natural place for my character to go would be to become much more like him." Unlike the future Xavier, McAvoy's Xavier still has a full head of hair. McAvoy knows that Xavier will eventually lose his hair, but believes that it shouldn't just be him shaving his head. "I think it should be for a reason. I think it should be—Like in the comic books, it was for a reason."
He reveals that most of his scenes take place with Jackman, someone who he's taken to calling "Hugo Boss," and Nick Hoult. He also likens his past Charles to Hugh Jackman's Wolverine. It’s a different dynamic. I’m very much the problem and he’s actually very much the Charles Xavier, trying to help fix me. He’ll go, “What does this kid need to get to the root of his problem and unlock his potential and all that?” And I’m very much, weirdly, like the Logan of old, in that I’m angry all the time. I’m irrational. I kind of just want to have a fight all the time. And then I just want to disappear and forget about it all."
Check out the full interview at Collider where he shares more stories from the set!
Check out Hugh Jackman's Interview HERE
Check out Bryan Singer's Interview HERE
The ultimate X-Men ensemble fights a war for the survival of the species across two time periods in X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST. The beloved characters from the original "X-Men" film trilogy join forces with their younger selves from "X-Men: First Class," in an epic battle that must change the past -- to save our future.
X-Men: Days Of Future Past features:
Director: Bryan Singer
Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine
Patrick Stewart/James McAvoy as Charles Xavier/Professor X
Ian McKellen/Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto
Jennifer Lawrence as Raven Darkholme/Mystique
Halle Berry as Ororo Munroe/Storm
Peter Dinklage as Bolivar Trask
Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy/Beast
Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde
Shawn Ashmore as Bobby Drake/Iceman
Anna Paquin as Rogue
Lucas Till as Alex Summers/Havok
Evan Peters as Quicksilver
Daniel Cudmore as Peter Rasputin/Colossus
Booboo Stewart as James Proudstar/Warpath
Omar Sy as Bishop
Fan Bingbing as Blink
Evan Jonigkeit as Toad
Adan Canto as Sunspot
Josh Helman as William Stryker
X-Men: Days Of Future Past hits theaters on May 23, 2014.