5 things I learned from the X-Men: First Class press conference

Last week I was afforded the opportunity to attend the X-Men: First Class press conference, allowing me to go eyeball-to-eyeball with all the stars: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Kevin Bacon, Lenny Kravitz's daughter and the guy who makes tornados come out of his hands that can't really speak much English.

As it turns out, the junket, which was hosted admirably by Empire Magazine's Chris Hewitt, was actually really relaxed and fun – but also very enlightening. Here are the top five information gems that I gleaned from the experience.

James McAvoy is really funny… in a surreal kind of way. When someone asked him why he decided to 'physicalise' Xavier’s telepathic power in the way that he did, McAvoy replied:


James McAvoy also gave us an insight into his childhood. Not only did he reveal that he was first introduced to the X-Men via the Saturday cartoon series on Live & Kicking, but he also defended the film’s history-re-writing of the Cuban Missile Crisis by explaining that it will make kids want to look up the incident themselves, just as he did with… er… Young Einstein:

He's still struggling to understand it though.

People ask some dumb fucking questions at these things. One woman lowered the common IQ of the entire room when she asked Kevin Bacon: "Kevin, you're already a superhero to your fans [nice lead-in, lady], but what was it like to play a mutant?" An amused Bacon replied:

NEXT QUESTION, PLEASE.
Michael Fassbender is now blonde! No idea why and it has nothing to do with the X-Men, but it was still a shock.

"Only I know the answer."

My iPhone is shit at taking photos.