James McAvoy, after finding his stride with Atonement (2007) and Wanted (2008), got the chance to work in the long-running franchise, X-Men, as the younger version of Professor X aka Charles Xavier.
Appearing on a GQ special in December last year, McAvoy broke down his most iconic characters, and the most interesting was his introduction into the world of Marvel with X-Men: First Class (2011).
McAvoy explained his motivations for hopping onto the X-Men bandwagon, and his main focus was on the highly revered actor, Sir Patrick Stewart, who played Professor X since the first installment in 2000 and came back for Logan in 2017.
He revealed that he signed on for the project as the film would be shot really close to his home and that he couldn’t miss a chance to work with Stewart, whom he grew up watching, even though he didn’t read the full script.
James McAvoy’s Obsession With Sir Patrick Stewart
McAvoy revealed how the project resonated with his interest in portraying the character as he grew up watching the X-Men cartoons. He shifted from that and took his time to elaborate on his fanboy moment when he said that working with Sir Patrick Stewart had an allure like nothing else.
“I loved X-Men from a young age, loved the cartoon. And also loved Patrick Stewart, primarily from, ‘Star Trek,’ from ‘Dune,’ where he played Gurney Halleck, I think, and then literally, from X-Men itself. So that was a massive draw for me too.”
Stewart gained global popularity during the 1980s when he appeared in ambitious sci-fi projects like Dune in 1984 and then Star Trek: The Next Generation which ran for 7 seasons from 1987 to 1994.
James McAvoy On Not Reading Through X-Men Script
The idea of being in an X-Men film, as James McAvoy noted, had an incredible amount of potential for him to have fun with the character. His rendition of Professor X turned out to be strikingly different as he played Stewart’s younger and more relaxed version.
However, he did that without reading the script in full. He said that the studios gave him a 2-hour window to finish it, and he had to sit in a restaurant and make notes.
“So I went and read the script, I had to sit in a restaurant… Vapiano or Portland Street maybe. And I ran out of time. I didn’t even get it finished. They gave me like a two-hour slot, and I’m so slow at reading scripts, I’m always taking notes.”
For now, the last appearance of McAvoy’s iteration of Professor X was in Dark Phoenix in 2019. Stewart, on the other hand, reprised his role in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness last year.
X-Men films are available on Disney+ for streaming.
Source: GQ
