It’d be difficult for any actor to stand out in the
X-Men movies, lest he or she play a mutant whose superpower is commanding everyone’s attention at all times or growing 20-feet tall whenever they’re being ignored. Especially in the latest installment,
X-Men: Days of Future Past, the star power is stronger than Hank "Beast" McCoy on the Ryan Braun diet. You’ve got Hugh Jackman and his ridiculously ripped physique muscling around as the sequel’s time-traveling hero, Wolverine, and Oscar darling Jennifer Lawrence leaving fanboys all googily-eyed as the sultry and dangerous shape-shifter Mystique, while using her Herculean acting skills to give the character endearing depth and vulnerability.
Take another look at
X-Men: Days of Future Past’s poster, though, and pay close attention to the long-haired gent occupying Jackman's left pec:
James McAvoy. He’s the always impressive Scot who, despite his lower profile, is the best thing about both
X-Men: Days of Future Past and its predecessor,
X-Men: First Class (2011), even if he's been relegated to 'Wolverine's chest' one-sheet placement.
McAvoy plays the young Professor Charles Xavier with a wry sense of humor and an inner turmoil that’s never on-the-nose, unlike, say, Jackman’s Wolverine, whose droll one-liners are funny but often telegraphed.
McAvoy never signals where Professor X’s emotions are leaning. He doesn’t own the dialogue so much as live within it. In a franchise dominated by showy performances and supernaturally powerful mutants, his Charles Xavier is the necessary straight-man who keeps the larger-than-life enterprise on course.
(...) You get the sense that he’s signed on for numerous
X-Men movies for two reasons: He wants to have some big-budgeted fun and he’s able to understand the complexity of a character like Charles Xavier.