In 2014, the X-Men film series delivered a crossover of sorts with X-Men: Days of Future Past, which combined the casts of the then-current “First Class” movies and the mutant franchise’s original trilogy. As a result, young Professor X actor James McAvoy got to spend time with Patrick Stewart, who reprised the older Charles Xavier, and Ian McKellen, who reprised the older Magneto. During the sixth main X-Men movie’s production, there was a specific moment away from the cameras when McAvoy saw firsthand what made Stewart and McKellen “a different kind of actor” in his eyes.
James McAvoy appeared alongside fellow X-Men: Days of Future Past alum Elliot Page to speak with Happy Sad Confused’s Josh Horowitz a New York Comic Con. The discussion included Page’s work on The Odyssey and McAvoy sharing how the X-Men movies beat the MCU to the punch in a big way, but the latter also recalled the time when he got to spend “a whole afternoon” with Stewart and McKellen. McAvoy came into one of the trailers to see the former cooking and the latter “sitting with his feet up in the recliner,” which led to the following:
And I just finished doing Macbeth on the West End in London… I go into the trailer, and Ian’s going, ‘You’ve just you’ve just come off the stage, James. You’ve just done Macbeth, haven’t you?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s right.’ He’s like, ‘Come on, let’s all do a bit.’ Because Patrick had done it as well. And I’m like, ‘What?’ And honestly, I’d only finished I think two weeks before, and I couldn’t remember a single line. And these two are like bandying back and forward favorite bits from Macbeth. And I was like, ‘Wow.’ It’s a different kind of actor, a different kind of machine.
I don’t think anyone remotely familiar with Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen should be surprised they were able to spout off Macbeth lines off the cuff. These two were both members of the Royal Shakespeare Company and performing in productions penned by The Bard long before they brought Professor X and Magneto to life on the big screen. James McAvoy is certainly no stranger to Shakespeare either, but those Macbeth lines had already exited his mind a few weeks after he played the title role.
Maybe McAvoy will get to a point when he can recall lines from Shakespeare plays with the same ease as Stewart and McKellen do, but regardless, he was impressed seeing them do it. Aside from Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, McAvoy’s Charles Xavier was the only other “First Class” actor in X-Men: Days of Future Past to share screen time with someone from the original X-Men cast. The older and younger Xavier came “face to face” by using Wolverine’s mind as a connection between the past and present, and Stewart’s version convinced McAvoy’s to “hope again.”
Feel free to revisit X-Men: Days of Future Past with your Disney+ subscription. James McAvoy’s next movie, California Schemin’ (which he also directed) premiered at TIFF in September, but no release date has been set yet. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen will be back as Professor X and Magneto, respectively, for the upcoming Marvel movie Avengers: Doomsday, which comes out on December 18, 2026.