One of the coolest surprises at the 2013 San Diego Comic was the appearance of the entire main cast of X-Men: Days of Future Past. 20th Century Fox brought Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ellen Page, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Peter Dinklage, Evan Peters, and director Bryan Singer to the Con, pulling off one of the best kept secrets until they appeared at a press conference prior to taking the stage in front of surprised comic book/film fanatics fortunate enough to have a ticket to the sold-out annual event.
Just getting to see the cast seated in a row during the press conference was a treat, but then to hear them joke about the new film and their characters pretty much made the craziness of Comic Con worthwhile this year.
X-Men: Days of Future Past Press Conference
What kind of challenges did you have to go through dealing with this storyline?
Bryan Singer: “Initially, it began with the goal of making a film that would bring this cast together in some way, and time travel or time displacement of some kind would be a tool that we could use to do that. Essentially, the Wolverine of the future, his consciousness is sent to his younger self. It’s nice that Hugh was able to play both parts because the character of Wolverine is ageless, which is really unique. It was great to be able to place him in both of these worlds as a character – and for me to reunite with this original cast.”
How much of a role does Kitty Pryde have in Days of Future Past?
Simon Kinberg: “The biggest difference is that Kitty’s not the one who goes back in time, Kitty’s the one who sends someone back in time. And so as people will see, Wolverine goes back in time.”
What’s it feel like to return to these characters?
Patrick Stewart: “Well, these things have a strange life because you start out and it could just be a movie and that’s it – you tell everyone good-bye. But then it develops its own life force. …The best part about this movie has been for me knowing that at an earlier time in my life I was James McAvoy.”
James McAvoy: “And if I have to grow up into being somebody, how cool is it to grow up being Sir Patrick Stewart, star of stage and screen? It was a big kick getting to work with Patrick. I got to be in the same room as Ian and Hugh and Ellen. It was a real kick. But just dramatically, the whole idea behind First Class kind of rebooting the whole of who we were when we were younger, I never thought for a second I’d actually get to work with Patrick so it was just quite interesting to show the two opposite sides of these people at different times in their lives and their personal adventures.”
Ian McKellen: “I’m looking forward one day to being as dashing and successful as Michael Fassbender. [To Stewart] We can’t really believe our luck, can we, that we’re still allowed out. Also that playing a character over two, three, four films now, it’s fun to go back to the character and realize that he’s still lurking inside you. But these stories need to be told, that’s what I like about the X-Men.”
Halle Berry: “And what’s nice is that we all love the films, but what’s nice for me is that in the first movie we all became such good friends. We really like each and we like being around each other. So to have a chance to do the work that we love and to hang out with the people that we really admire, respect, and like to be around, for me is the joy of coming back to these movies. The beauty is, because we are good friends, we pick up as if we just saw each other yesterday. I was really happy to see everybody.”
Jennifer Lawrence: “We became so close on First Class and after I got the movie I went and watched all of them and I never thought that I’d be able to meet some of the original cast.”
Bryan Singer: “I built the old hallways from the X-Men 1, 2 and 3…it’s the fourth time we’ve built these blue hallways – they are kind of iconic in the X-Men films. It was really fun when they walked on the set because they’d been in an X-Men movie, but not with those hallways or with Hugh as Wolverine. Jen was standing in the hallway and we were looking at one of your costumes and you were like, ‘Can I see Cerebro?’ And I was like, ‘Sure. I’ll show you Cerebro.'”
James McAvoy: “That’s not a euphemism, by the way.”[laughter]
Nicholas Hoult: “When we walked into those old corridors for the first time, I looked over during a take and I saw Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and I started to panic and freak out a little bit. Those were films I grew up watching.”
James McAvoy: “I had a weird experience when I did Narnia. I walked into K&B, the prosthetics company, […]and in that room was like a massive lion and it was Aslan. I was a huge fan of these books growing up and I saw Aslan and went down on my knees, going, ‘My king!’ And I’ve never really had that experience again in my career but weirdly doing my first scenes with you guys – Hugh and Patrick and Ian and all that – it…I wasn’t down on my knees…but it did feel a little bit like I was touching kind of an icon, you know what I mean?”
Will this film be playing with the continuity of the series?
Bryan Singer: “Of the universe as established in the movies? Yes, there will be some of that. Whenever you go back in time, and this is every bit as much a time travel movie as it is an X-Men, there is those risks. So some of that’s going to happen and yet there are some things if you believe in certain physics and you also have a respect for the continuity as we have, then I’m less so trapped in the previous films. Again, I’m not the audience, I’m just the filmmaker. But I do believe in certain continuity but some things will change. It’s the nature of time travel.”
Will there scenes with the younger and older versions of the same characters?
Bryan Singer: “Primarily since Wolverine is the journeyman, his interaction with the younger cast is primary. There is a moment … where these two characters come face to face, the younger self and older self. We’re trying to do it in a unique way. It’s been done before but my first opportunity to make a time travel movie really wanted to do my very best to create a set of rules and respect them, create a continuity within those rules. But there’s a bit of interaction like that.”
What was your first reaction to this project?
Patrick Stewart: “I heard about this movie and I was immediately filled with such sadness because, most of you probably won’t recall but at the end of the third movie, I was vaporized by Jean Grey. [Laughing] And that really hurt, by the way. I hope that never happens to any of you. So my assumption was it’s going to be Ian, Halle, Hugh, and everybody back – but it won’t be me. But something happened which I’m not allowed to talk about. Am I? Oh, you can!”
Bryan Singer: “Characters come back to life in the comics. Whenever I do something, I can’t just do it flippantly. I have to at least believe in the idea, the conceit. In my own mind, I understand how Xavier is alive from X-Men 3. There’s a beat at the end of X-Men 3 after the credits when his consciousness is alive inside a woman in the hospital. Then you take that, mix it with some powerful mutants – mutants can do a lot of cool stuff – and you can imagine anything’s possible.”
Patrick Stewart: “So does that mean Xavier is back?”
Bryan Singer: “For the moment.”
How did you feel about the costumes this time?
Jennifer Lawrence: [Gestures to Berry] “She’s pregnant, I’m naked. Come see the movie.”
Bryan Singer: “This Mystique was less innocent, evolved, getting closer to where Mystique was in X-Men 2.”
Jennifer Lawrence: “When we left the movie she was ‘mutant and proud.’ She was struggling with that problem a lot of normal people struggle with about being insecure about how they look, so she was very covered up in the first movie. But this time she was mutant and proud.”
James McAvoy: “My threads are awesome; lots of flair, chunky shoes, psychedelic shirts, lot of brown jackets going on with very violently covered shirts underneath.”
Hugh Jackman: “In the future, the X-Men suits are unbelievable. First of all, hell of a lot more comfortable to wear than X-Men 1 and 2, but they look really amazing. People in the future wear suits who have never worn suits before. That’s all I’m going to say.”
Ian McKellen: “Do you get to wear the helmet?”
Michael Fassbender: “Yes.”
Ian McKellen: “The best thing about playing the old Magneto this time: no helmet.”
Michael Fassbender: “You don’t like the helmet?”
Ian McKellen: “Oh, no. We’ll talk about our helmets later.”
