Actor James McAvoy has opened up about returning to Marvel to portray Professor X again after starring as the beloved mutant leader in 20th Century Fox’s X-Men prequel series.
How long did James McAvoy play Professor X?
McAvoy first portrayed Charles Xavier/Professor X, the founder of the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters and leader of the X-Men, in the 2011 movie X-Men: First Class. He reprised the role in 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, which also featured the return of Patrick Stewart as an older Charles Xavier. McAvoy next appeared as Professor X in X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), followed by an uncredited cameo in Deadpool 2 (2018). His final performance as the character was in 2019’s Dark Phoenix.
With Marvel Studios currently bringing back several Marvel legacy actors for the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s Multiverse Saga, Screen Rant asked McAvoy during an interview at San Diego Comic-Con 2024 if he had any interest in returning as Professor X.
“Listen, for me as an actor, if I’m going to go back and play a character I’ve already played? I would want to be a new, different reinterpretation or newly explored version or something like that,” he explained. “The only thing that makes me take any job is whether the script’s good, and whether the character’s interesting, and that would have to be the case. It would also have to be the case that I got offered that, so that’s completely hypothetical.”
McAvoy continued, “But I feel like they’re moving on, they’re doing new things, and they’re going to do great things. They always do. But I would never say no to something if I’ve not seen a script, and I would never say yes to something if the script was really bad.”
Since wrapping up his five-film run as Professor X, McAvoy has starred in several horror/thrillers, including It Chapter Two (2019). The actor is currently promoting Universal’s Speak No Evil, a psychological thriller and remake of the 2022 Danish movie of the same name. Starring alongside Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy, the McAvoy-led Speak No Evil hits theaters on September 13, 2024.
The X-Men movies are available to stream on Disney+.
