Patrick Stewart was born to play Professor Charles Xavier. When Mr. Stewart impregnated Mrs. Stewart, nature determined that lil' Patrick was born to be the disabled leader of the X-Men. Because of this, it's impossible to say how James McAvoy will do with the role in next year's X-Men: First Class. Fortunately, the actor possesses the ability to flap his gums and produce noise from his vocal chords.
MTV recently spoke with the actor about the role, and while he started off with a joke ("I'm basically going to try and bury Patrick's performance"), he quickly got down to the nitty-gritty. According to McAvoy, the reboot nature of the film will allow him to use the start to develop the character as his own, knowing that by the end his performance needs to start matching that of Stewart's for continuity. "The interesting journey is what happens to them, what changes them, what makes them evolve," he said. "Not just mutate, but emotionally and psychologically evolve." He added that he expects the end of this film, and perhaps the start of a second, will more closely mirror Stewart's take on the character, or, failing that, "maybe it will still be in a period of flux, if there is a new movie."
It sounds as though they are doing their best to stay within the limits established by Bryan Singer with his first two X-Men films, but this will certainly be an interesting development. It doesn't take a degree in facial recognition to realize that James McAvoy doesn't look anything like Patrick Stewart, but perhaps the performance will be enough that we can ignore that detail. Judging the description given by Singer a few weeks ago, X-Men: First Class will be a beast of different shapes and sizes than it's predecessors. Guess we'll just have to wait and see at this point.
