Lucas Till on 'Havok'

"For X-Men: First Class, my routine is a lot different. Portraying Alex Summers, I want to look as athletic as his character is in the comics. My trainer, Ed Chow, is one of the nicest people on the face of the earth, which is deceiving, because he is damn good at what he does."


http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/MarvelFreshman/news/?a=29092

Patrick Stewart comments on the new Professor X

When he was informed that James McAvoy was playing the role of Professor X he said:

He is? He’s doing it? I had no idea! I must say that it is nice to see a role that you created go forward with someone you admire."

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/joshw24/news/?a=29086

First image of Oliver Platt as The Man in Black

Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique), James McAvoy (Charles Xavier), Oliver Platt (The Man In Black), Rose Byrne (Dr. Moira MacTaggert)

http://comicbookmovie.com/fansites/MarvelFreshman/news/?a=28956

James McAvoy speaks to Collider.com

What is it like to do X-Men: First Class and have such a quick turn-around, since the film is due out on June 3rd?
James McAvoy: I don’t think I’ve ever made such a big movie, in such a short period of time. It’s nuts, really. But, we’re getting it done. No movie has ever got enough time. It doesn’t matter how much money you’ve got, and it doesn’t matter how much money you’ve not got. You never finish on time. You’re always up against it and you’re always working up until the end. To get three days off the schedule to come and do [press for Gnomeo & Juliet] is a nice break ‘cause it is just [non-stop], all the time. But then, that’s what it is with every single movie I’ve ever been on. It just feels like the usual. It’s more about whether they can get it ready in time for the release date. They’re working on the editing now, and they’re working on the special effects now. They’ve got a big department working 24/7 on it.

From what you were told about the film to how it’s turning out, how does it compare?
James McAvoy: It’s pretty much what I thought it would be when (director) Matthew [Vaughn] took me through it all. He really wanted to play off the ‘60s setting of it, and play off the style of that, visually, in the design of the costumes and all that, which we totally got. And, he wanted us to be really free, in terms of characterization, and was confident in taking it as far away from the original characters, not as we could, but as we thought was right. We’ve really done that quite a lot. Otherwise, there’s no point in doing a prequel, if they’re just the exact same people. They’ve got to be very different, otherwise there is no journey. This story is all about that journey to showing the seeds of how they are in the other X-Men movies, and to show what could have been between Erik and Charles – or Professor X and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) – and to show why it couldn’t be.

What’s been the toughest part about playing such a popular character?
James McAvoy: The toughest part is probably that I’ve got a great superpower and, if you had it in real life, it would be amazing, but in a movie, everybody else is bouncing off the walls and shooting fucking beams of light out of their chest and doing crazy stuff and making things fly around, and I’m [putting my finger to my forehead]. It just feels a little bit like, “Oh, god!” But, what’s nice is that it means I have less CGI and stunt work to do, which means I have more time in my bed. That’s the thing. I look at all the other people using their superpowers and I’m like, “That would have been fun!”

What’s been the best part of this gig?
James McAvoy: The best part about it, for me so far, is that I really love the cast. The cast has just been incredible. We’ve had a lot of fun, actually. I’ve loved working with [Michael] Fassbender. I think he’s great. I’m so glad that we got to collaborate on something. But, just from top to bottom, the cast is amazing. Having Kevin Bacon play your baddie is great. It’s a great, slightly left-field piece of casting as well. I don’t think anybody expected that. Hopefully, that’s a clue as to what the movie will be.

http://collider.com/james-mcavoy-interview-x-men-first-class-gnomeo-julie/71964/

James McAvoy speaks to Screen Rant

 
Screen Rant: One thing people are wondering is how Professor X is going to be depicted in terms of combat, as he trained for it in the comics.
James McAvoy: 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.

SR: So it will be more about the mind control.
JM: Yes.

SR: Will he end up in the chair at the end and will he end up bald? Because that is the current rumor.
JM: You’ll have to wait and see, you’ll have to wait and see. 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.

SR: Ooooookay. What if anything did you take from Patrick Stewart’s portrayal?
JM: 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. We thought of what the opposite of all of those things would be – so now he drinks a lot, chases women quite a lot, and doesn’t mind sort of abusing his power to get ahead. He’s definitely got an ego, and he’s definitely a little bit selfish. So that’s where we start with him, and so he’s now got to grow towards –Sir Patrick.

SR: So it’s the experiences of this film that make him who he is as a character ultimately?
JM: Yes.

http://screenrant.com/james-mcavoy-xmen-class-interview-professor-x-rothc-97608/

Director Matthew Vaughn says 'imagine Bond'...and 'Twilight'

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How would you describe First Class to the uninitiated?
MATTHEW VAUGHN: The best way of describing it is X-Men meets Bond, with a little bit of Thirteen Days thrown in for good measure. It’s set in the ’60s, and I basically molded a young Magneto on a young Sean Connery. He’s the ultimate spy — imagine Bond, but with superpowers.

If Magneto is Bond, then what about Charles Xavier?You’re seeing Xavier become a professor. For me, Magneto is the good guy in the film, but he’s a sort of a good bad guy. He literally kicks off the movie, and Xavier goes along on the ride trying to figure out what the hell is going on, and trying to persuade Erik that you don’t have to kill everyone.

I know you’re under tight restrictions about what you can reveal regarding the plot, but, well, what else can you say?In the beginning of the film, no one knows that mutants exist, and all the mutants don’t know that each other exist. They’re all in hiding. Kevin Bacon plays a very megalomaniac mutant [Sebastian Shaw] who decides that he can take over the world and that mutants are the future. Erik and Charles then meet each other and hook up with the CIA to try and prevent World War III. You find out everything about what went on between Erik and Charles.

And there are flashbacks with Erik and Charles as young children?They’re not flashbacks — we start there. It starts in 1942, and then works its way up to 1962.

Did you have any concerns about how, no matter what you do, you may anger some of the die-hard fans?Yeah, but I could tell those fans that they’re wrong. One thing about the X-Men world is that, if you know your X-Men universe, every writer reinvented the storyline. I did my research, and none of the histories of the characters make any sense. Each writer just totally changed the history to make their plot work. So I can quite safely say that X-Men has a history of reinventing its history for the sake of the plot.

Is the movie related at all to the First Class comics?Not really. There are a lot of nods to the X-Men world and the X-Men movies, but it’s definitely its own beast.

You were going to direct X-Men: The Last Stand and then dropped out two months before filming started. The story is that you thought you weren’t going to have enough time to see your vision through…That’s true. It was as simple as that. In retrospect, I probably would have had more time then than I do now, which is highly ironic. But I also have more experience now than I did then. And I had no idea how big-budget filmmaking worked, so I was just applying small-budget independent-style logic to the wrong equation. And when I saw the film, I realized that Fox would have given me all the tools I needed. I was just stupid enough not to take them. But we both decided to cross the bridge together again. I definitely had burned a bridge. But they asked, so we met and we both kissed and made up and went off to make the film.

How did you settle on James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as Professor X and Magneto, respectively?Professor X is a very hard character to cast. Out of all the characters, he’s the dullest if you really think about it. He’ll be in a wheelchair eventually, and he’s sort of a sanctimonious preacher half of the time. Patrick Stewart brought so much to that role, and I needed to get an actor who could do the same — who could give him a fourth dimension that’d make him sparkle. James was literally at the top of the list, and he said yes, so I got my first actor very quickly.

Magneto was a juicier role. I’ve been watching Fassbender for a long time, and I knew the guy was going to pop as a movie star. He read it and knocked it out of the park, and the rest of the cast just fell in around them. What makes me laugh is, by this time next year, half of my cast is going to be extremely popular and famous. Jennifer Lawrence [i.e. Raven Darkholme/Mystique] is going to pop. Nicholas Hoult [i.e. Hank McCoy/Beast] definitely is. People are going to find Kevin Bacon a revelation, and January Jones [i.e. Emma Frost] has got huge star potential.

And, please, one more story tease?It’s got a lot of teenage angst. The Twilight girls will like it.

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/01/22/x-men-first-class-matthew-vaughn/

January Jones On Emma Frost, The Hellfire Club, Sequels And More!

"I was very excited to do something so different and so iconic and be a part of a franchise like that. But also there was a huge weight of responsibility, too, to portray that character. There are so many fans of the comics and the movies that -- inevitably, I'm going to disappoint someone, but I just wanted to really do my research and still have fun with it. It's been a blast so far. I just hope all the fans enjoy it as much as we have."
 
"Well, we're still shooting it. When I heard it was coming out that quickly, I had a lot of questions. They're editing as we go, doing the visual effects as we go. Obviously, I have a lot of faith in the people we're using for those things. I didn't have to do any wire work, but there was a lot of wire work involved for some of the characters and there are times when you're imagining this is going to be happening behind you so you react to that, which was my first experience with that sort of thing and which was fun. It was like coming to work and being a little kid and using your imagination and times feeling kind of silly, but embracing the fact that it's going to look awesome. And from what I've seen it looks amazingly incredible. Just Emma Frost's diamond form alone I've never seen anything like it."

"I don't want to give any of that away as far as their relationship, but I can say that it doesn't feel like a period movie. There's obviously historical aspects in the storytelling and some of the props and stuff, but I think it feels very modern. It does take place in 1962. One of the things that's brought in from that time, the Hellfire Club aspect especially, is that it's pretty -- I dunno, the Bunnies and the Playboy clubs. It's really cool. You'd think Sinatra was there. The sets are really cool and the vibe of the whole thing is really neat."

"We don't go into too much of the backstory. Not really. it's more of a mystery about the relationship she has with Shaw and her past and why she reacts certain ways to certain things. I think the fans of the comic who know her history will understand why she does certain things because they know her, but I don't think it'll be confusing to audiences who don't know her backstory either. Well, she's on the side of the mutants. I have hard time defining who is good guy-bad guy in this because everyone's pro-mutant. It's just whether you trust the humans or you don't. So I can't say whether she's a bad guy or a good guy."

"Yeah, I'd love to do another one. I've had a great experience on this one. It's been really, really fun and just an exciting place to go to work. Just a lot of great talent and also we just get to play. It feels like being a kid again, although my outfits are not. (laughs)"