Now that James McAvoy has proven that he is a man, growing a beard and everything, he is eligible to play proper grown-up roles. He portrayed grizzled London cop Max Lewinsky in Welcome To The Punch, grizzled art dealer Simon in Trance, and now comes the final act in his transition into manhood: portraying the Professor Xavier during his painful 1970’s period in X-Men: Days Of Future Past.
To say that Bryan Singer has been Tweeting pictures from behind-the-scenes like billy-o would be a giant understatement. To do a quick round-up, we’ve already seen Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde, a returning Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Halle Berry as Storm, Shawn Ashmore as Iceman, Patrick Stewart as grown-up Professor X, and the picture below – James McAvoy as Bee Gees Professor Xavier:
The shirt and the flares are great. It’s how, in our modern MTV-addled minds, we imagine everybody looked and dressed in the 70’s, corrupted by The Bee Gees and their long hair, beards, and teeth. What teeth.
James McAvoy joins a cast that is growing and growing, with every young star in Hollywood clamouring for a chance to mutate into something that sort of still resembles a person but not really. The cast list includes Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Ian McKellan, Anna Paquin, Ellen Page, Omar Sy, and Peter Dinklage.  Who else do you need for your movie? No-one. Peter Dinklage alone could carry this movie, on the strength of pure attitude. He’d make a killer Storm.
It remains to be seen how Bryan Singer’s conception of time travel will work out so as to allow the mixed cast of characters from their respective periods to work together, but we sure are interested in seeing how it all plays out.
X-Men: Days Of Future Past will be released on July 18th, 2014.
