James McAvoy talks about his surprise at hearing of X-Men: Apocalypse, his interest in returning to the character, and how Days of Future Past is a departure for himself and the audience.
While working the red carpet line at the British Independent Film Awards, actor James McAvoy took a moment to answer a few questions about his role as Charles Xavier in the X-Men films, particularly X-Men: Days of Future Pastand X-Men: Apocalypse.
First, while speaking with Red Carpet News TV, McAvoy stated that he was as surprised as anyone when director Bryan Singer tweeted that the next X-film, X-Men: Apocalypse, will be upon us in May 2016.
“I only heard about it this morning,” The Scottish actor exclaimed. But ash e told the interviewer a little later, “I’m contracted to [return], and yes I would,” he said excitedly.
He also took the time to reflect upon his arc as Charles Xavier across X-Men: First Class and Days of Future Past.
“The personal pleasure for me in First Class was presenting a Charles Xavier to the fans, but also a new audience, who's very different from the Charles that you expected. But he was still very sort of 'Everything's going good,' you know? In the second movie I get to present another version of Charles Xavier who's still very different from the Charles that used to exist, but he's also remarkably different from the Charles in First Class as well. So what's great is that even though it's a sequel, even though it's a franchise, I keep getting to reinvent Charles Xavier and that's amazing. I've got to do it twice now, because the Charles in this film is unrecognizable from the Charles in the last film as well unrecognizable from the Charles played by Patrick Stewart, who I then get to face up to. That's sort of theatrical almost, it's like we're playing a game with the audience saying ‘Look at the many faces of Charles, Patrick, Stewart-Xavier, McAvoy’ It's really good fun.”
X-Men: Days of Future Past arrives on 23, 2014.