In X-Men: First Class I tried to get this thing across which they didn’t really run with. I had the idea that Charles Xavier was a bit conceited. But that is his privileged nature, even though he has a natural empathy. His whole power basically is a physical manifestation of empathy but [my idea was that] it still hadn’t come to full fruition yet because he didn’t really understand pain. By the end of the movie, he gets his pain and he truly becomes Professor X, learns empathy, because he understands what life is like for everybody else.

He’s so unlike most mutants. Every mutant’s story is about living in the ghetto and being fucked up, being bullied and all that. But Professor X is like, “Yeah, I have had a fucking excellent life to be honest with you… I don’t know what you are fucking complaining about” But then he gets his pain… and that’s what will propel him into the next movie to go through the crucible, to grow into that power of empathy he’s more traditionally portrayed with.