Patrick Stewart has documented the journey of his life in his recent book Making It So: A Memoir where he explained great details of his life and career as an iconic actor. While speaking of X-Men, Stewart revealed that he had no clue about the character.
Stewart’s portrayal of Charles Xavier— the leader of the X-Men, has been loved by millions of fans, but he was not up for playing the character at first. Eventually, he agreed to play the pivotal role and appeared in several movies of the franchise.
Who On Earth Is X-Men?
Patrick Stewart practically had no idea about the X-Men. Perhaps, he was not so familiar with the Marvel Comics. The Professor X actor was approached to play the iconic X-Men character in 1997. As he revealed candidly in his book, before this, he had zero perception of the character or the group of mutants. “Who on earth is that, Lauren?” Stewart asked X-Men producer Lauren Donner at the time.
“This conversation made about as much sense to me as the one I’d had with Steve Dontanville all those years ago in which he asked me why Gene Roddenberry wanted to meet me. Charles Xavier? The X-Men? I hadn’t a bloody clue what was going on. Lauren patiently explained that X-Men was to be a big-budget film based on a Marvel Comics superhero team. Charles Xavier was the creation of comic book legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. He is a telepath and paraplegic who exists in a world where mutants represent the next phase in human evolution, but face discrimination and bigotry because of their superhuman powers,” the British actor wrote in his book (via /Film).
Recalling Donner’s explanation, he further stated that his character is the leader of a group of young superheroes. Professor X oversees “an academy called the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters and a strike force of do-gooder fellow mutants called the X-Men,” he recalled. “He is the guy who puts the X in X-Men.” However, the explanation was not enough and he required further convincing.
Patrick Stewart Did Not Want To Play Professor X
Stewart joined the MCU franchise as Professor X in the 2000 film X-Men. Following his debut in the film, his character appeared in a handful of movies in the X-Men franchise but his appearance as a different variant of his character in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was a joy for many to relive the character.
But it would have been a different actor sitting in his wheelchair with all the power he had in his brain as Stewart was not interested in the role at all. He believed, his X-Men character was too similar to his Star Trek: The Next Generation character, Jean-Luc Picard. But it was X-Men director Bryan Singer’s superpower to convince him to come on board.
“Bryan passionately argued that there were no major similarities between Jean-Luc Picard and Charles Xavier, or between ‘Star Trek’ and ‘X-Men.’ One was a legacy sci-fi franchise and the other part of the burgeoning industry of big-budget comic book adaptations — totally different in style and content. He said he had studied the work I had done over the past ten years, and ‘X-Men’ related to none of it. With bravado, Bryan said this was going to be totally new territory for me, and the whole world would see my work,” the 83-year-old wrote.
Understandably for Stewart, he was tired of fantasy and sci-fi projects. “No more sci-fi. No more telepaths. No more actors zipped into formfitting costumes. I’m done with all that,” the actor wrote. But Singer’s magic has created the masterful iteration of the character staring the actor.
