In Bryan Singer's "X-Men: Days of Future Past" we see our favorite mutants fighting to save their kind from utter destruction. The film follows Hugh Jackman's superhero Wolverine as his consciousness travels back to his 1970s-era body and tries to persuade Professor X, played by James McAvoy, and Xavier's rival Magneto (Michael Fassbender) to team up and stop a war profiteer Boliver Trask (Peter Dinklage) from using machines he developed to destroy all mutants.
Since it features both younger and older versions of the franchise's famous characters it feels like two films, according to Hugh Jackman.
"It is sort of filmed, in a way, like two films because the beginning was the future, which was like an incredible reunion for all of us and then on came the younger, more inexperienced actors," Jackman joked with reporters at a recent junket in New York.
In the film we see both the old and young versions of Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy), as well as two Magnetos (Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender) in their own eras respectively. However, that doesn't mean the actors actually get to share scenes, though Stewart and McAvoy do as they have the most powerful mutant mind on the planet.
Stewart recalled the day the scene was shot saying, “It was James’ first day of work and it was my last day of work. My bags were packed and I was read to get out of Dodge.”
He continue saying that they didn’t dwell on the scene, “I don’t recall rehearsing it. We knew the lines and they rolled the cameras and it was four minutes’ work. I shouldn’t have said that. I should have said we worked on it for weeks.”
While McAvoy and Patrick were able to interact as the same character in the same scene our other two past and present Magneto's, McKellen and Fassbender, didn’t even see each other on-set.
“We sort of kept missing each other,” Fassbender recalls.
“For this one I spent a lot of time with this video on YouTube, which was Ian McKellen in the 1970s doing this workshop on ‘Macbeth.’ I was playing that over and over again, getting more of the rhythms and tones of his voice.”
While it all sounds like lighthearted fun on the set Jackman revealed that through it all the entire X-Men cast has an unbreakable bond.
"I remember very clearly, sitting at the back of that private plane, watching these two guys go at it [in a fight scene,] and I say this absolutely sincerely, that I was never sure it could be possible to fill the shoes of Ian and Patrick and what they did in X-Men," said Jackman. "When I saw First Class, I realized these guys did it with such aplomb and confidence. Not only did they feel like younger versions of those characters ... they also have made it their own. It is an incredible feat, what you guys did. I think the way [Stewart and McKellen] anchor the films in X1, these guys anchor the film in this."
"X-Men: Days of Future Past" is in theaters now.
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