Michael Fassbender Talks Magneto in X-Men: First Class Sequel

“I get where [Magneto] is coming from, that’s for sure – having read the source material, the comic books. From what we know with human beings, history has told us that we’re a pretty destructive race, so you can see where he’s coming from. It’s always interesting for me to have the villains doing positive things as well as negative or destructive things. I just think it’s more realistic.

It’s like the actions will define the character . . . but it’s more about making sure that it’s intelligently written and there’s a real driving force, there’s real drama there, relationships are interesting, and that it’s not lazy in anyway. A lot of the times I think with action films, the plot can be pretty weak because it’s taking a back seat to the action sequences and the special effects. What we wanted to do with X-Men: First Class was definitely the reverse of that. We wanted to really focus on the characters and the plot and then have the action sequence there to sort of enhance the story.”

“Hopefully we’ll get to do another one; that’s what we want to carry that vein through for sure. Personally, I do and I know James McAvoy feels the same. You know what’s interesting about Magneto and Professor X from the comic books as well, is there’s such a complexity to their relationship. It’s not just like clear-cut enemies; they’re best friends as well. In the comic books, even after they’ve had this sort of rift, Professor X asks Magneto to come back and look after the students at certain points. I think there’s always that complexity in their relationship. And we want to keep that alive as possible, because that’s I think a really interesting thing – the conflict there.”