James McAvoy talks X-Men: First Class's Charles Xavier

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Professor X is "not particularly combat ready"

Following a recent deluge of X-Men: First Class pics, James McAvoy has spoken to Screen Rant about the movie.

In particular, he discusses his portrayal of Charles Xavier, the future leader of the X-Men, who was played memorably by Patrick Stewart in the previous movies.

When asked about how Professor X would be trained in terms of combat, McAvoy responded: "He’s not too combat savvy in this film, it has to be said. He doesn’t do too much, he’s sort of a consultant with the combat guys."

"But he does get involved in a few little bits of fisticuffs, I wouldn’t say that he comes out well in any of them, but I wouldn’t say that he gets his ass kicked either. Yeah he’s not particularly combat ready."

On what he took from Patrick Stewart's portrayal of the character, he said: "I’ll tell you what I did take – I looked at all of the things that he did the hardest. I looked at all of the things that came out the strongest in his performance and we said we have to go the opposite way."

"Simply to validate why we were making this film, because if they were just the same there would be no reason to make it, we have to show how different he is. We have to show a journey – so he clearly has to start in a different place."

"So the main things that we looked into are the fact that he is ego-less, selfless, a very good person, he’s sexless – he’s sort of like a monk."

"It’s actually quite satisfying when you get to say that: ‘I’m not allowed to say.’ Because nobody’s actually told you that you’re not allowed to say, but it’s sort of implied."

X-Men: First Class is set to be released in the UK on June 2nd this year.

Matt Maytum
Matt Maytum

Matt Maytum is the former Editor of Total Film magazine. Over the past decade, Matt has worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.