James McAvoy talks Patrick Stewart and Charles Xavier in 'X-Men: Days of Future Past'

James McAvoy reprises his role as Charles Xavier in X-Men: Days of Future Past; he previously played the character in X-Men: First Class in 2011. This time around, he shares the screen with Patrick Stewart, who played Professor X in multiple installments of the franchise.

Collider conducted several exclusive interviews with the cast members, and McAvoy offered up some interesting takes on his character, the comparisons to Patrick Stewart and more. Firstly, he talked about how First Class was more about Michael Fassbender's Magneto. In this movie, McAvoy said he wants to go more extreme with his character.

"When I first took over the part, I was only able to do that to a certain extent, because the film is about Michael's journey, really. As much as I had a great part and I helped facilitate that - it was like a buddy movie and stuff, I had nice stuff to play - it was ultimately his narrative. In this one, it feels a little different in that I can go further with the extremity of it. I can go further with the extremity from what Patrick did, but also from what I did in the last movie, too." 

He adds that Charles will be in physical pain but also emotional pain throughout the movie after Erik and Raven/Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) abandoned him. Charles no longer empathizes with others, which McAvoy said had been Charles' greatest strength. He also sais this film is much more intense than First Class.

McAvoy also described his scene with Patrick Stewart and threw in a Star Trek reference for good measure:

"It was my first day and their last day. We just did it. It was quite a simple scene, really, in terms of-When you have two people who have the same person at different times in their life, checking each other out, it's like... You don't want to get in the way of it too much, with too much blocking, or too much moving around even. You just want to have us face to face, in a kind of... Not to get too sort of Federation about it, but to be in a nexus, you know what I mean? Almost a void space. It isn't a void space. It's not like just a black studio with a white light coming from somewhere. But you just want it to be those people's faces, studying each other." 

McAvoy further discussed the differences between the two characters and notes that their personalities could converge at some point.

"I don't do anything that Patrick does, really. Which is the whole point for me. I think maybe toward the end of a third movie, if we make a third movie, the natural place for my character to go would be to become much more like him."  As for Charles' hair loss, McAvoy states, "I think it should be for a reason. I think it should be-Like in the comic books, it was for a reason." 

Finally, McAvoy talks about how Charles' past is similar to Wolverine's. Most of his scenes in the movie are with Hugh Jackman, whom he calls "Hugo Boss," and Nicholas Hoult aka Beast.

It's a different dynamic. I'm very much the problem and he's actually very much the Charles Xavier, trying to help fix me. He'll go, 'What does this kid need to get to the root of his problem and unlock his potential and all that?' And I'm very much, weirdly, like the Logan of old, in that I'm angry all the time. I'm irrational. I kind of just want to have a fight all the time. And then I just want to disappear and forget about it all." 

What do you take away from McAvoy's comments? Let us know in the comments below.