- James McAvoy underwent an 18-hour hair extension session to prep for "X-Men: Days of Future Past."
- The actor wanted to look like he smoked "a lot of weed," according to a new interview.
When James McAvoy undertook the role of a younger Professor X once again in the 2014 film "X-Men: Days of Future Past," it was important to the actor that audiences understood his character's physical and psychological journey — which included a significant makeover to differentiate himself from the older character, played by Patrick Stewart.
"I wanted to have long hair, and I wanted to look like I smoke a lot of weed and maybe do a little bit of something stronger in the '70s and sit in my purple haze just to show how far that journey is gonna have to be to make him into Patrick Stewart," said McAvoy in a video interview with GQ posted on Wednesday.
For McAvoy, who had received a buzzcut ahead of production, that meant sitting for one lengthy 18-hour hair extension session to achieve the shaggy, long-haired look that ended up in the film.
"I just sat there for 18 hours going out of my mind," McAvoy recalled. "But by the end of it, I looked like Professor X in 'Days of Future Past.'"
The actor also made a point of "injecting a massive ego" into his character to underscore Professor X's evolution from a younger, more brash man to the calmer, wiser, and more measured authoritative figure he would eventually become as the X-Men's leader.
"I think one of the defining aspects of what Patrick did and who Charles ultimately becomes is his selflessness," McAvoy said. "But we'd seen that in four movies — and now more with 'Logan' as well — in the ones that Patrick did. So I was like, 'What do we want to do? We want to do that again?' We've got the opportunity to go back in time and show that he had to grow into that person, so ego was a massive thing, because his selflessness was so strong in the other movies."