James McAvoy discusses Professor X in ‘X-Men: First Class’
CinemaBlend had a well timed interview with James McAvoy who will be playing Professor X in this summer X-Men prequel “X-Men: First Class”.
From the interview: McAvoy revealed that Xavier was initially going to be bald, but the studio vetoed the idea. Apparently this detail alone was enough to help him escape from under the weight of Patrick Stewart’s performance and left him saying,
“Well f*** it, I’m liberated then.”
This revelation seems to debunk the trailer details from last week that said we would see McAvoy losing his hair.
Discussing how the character is different than the one we’ve already seen on the screen, McAvoy expressed that he doesn’t see the point of doing a prequel set years earlier that features static characters.
As such, Xavier’s principles are in tact in the new film, however, other elements are definitely different.
“You look at the kind of main, defining characteristics of Professor X, of Charlie Boy, and you go, ‘Alright, he’s selfless. He’s a saint. He’s sexless, it seems. He’s egoless. He’s all about other people. He’s all about bettering the world and mutantkind and humankind.’ And so you kind of try and flip that on its head. You don’t make him an evil person, or anything like that, but you make him ego-driven, women-chasing, he likes a good drink. He’s not the reluctant leader that you kind of want all heroes to be. He actually kind of wants to be in charge, you know what I mean? And all of those things, just to kind of show a journey. So by the end of the movie he’s some way towards becoming Patrick Stewart[‘s version of the character], rather than just having the same guy at the beginning.”
Also significant is that he confirmed that Wolverine, played by Hugh Jackman in all previous films in the franchise, will not be making an appearance in the film.
Following that, I also decided to ask about the stuff that they were doing in re-shoots. In addition to “bits and bobs,” three scenes being worked on are the ending and two scenes out on the water.
“We doing a tiny little tweak on the very end, finale thing between me and Michael [Fassbender], who plays Magneto. And we’re doing, what else are we doing? It’s all little bits and bobs and things that we dropped or didn’t know we needed or trying to fix a little scene here or there or tighten up a scene here or there. We’re doing a little bit on a boat at one point, which is going to be fun; then a lot of underwater stuff last week, which I can’t really tell you what it’s about, but it’s quite exciting. Just bits and bobs really.”
“X-Men: First Class” is due out on June 3rd