James McAvoy says that his Charles Xavier has a big ego.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS star James McAvoy had a chat with Hero Complex about his role as Charles Xavier. The actor reconfirms that the film is a prequel and talks about the ego his character has compared to Patrick Stewart’s portrayal of the mutant telepath.

“This isn’t a reboot, so I’m not replacing [Stewart] in which case you might want to try to be as different as possible and stay away from what has been done before.” says McAvoy. “This is a prequel, so I’m the same character, just younger, but the challenge for me — and for Michael — is to show the same person in a different place in their life, to show someone before they’re this bad guy, before they’re this saint. Charles wasn’t always a … monk, this selfless, sexless monk that he becomes.”

McAvoy notes that his character has a much bigger ego than the calm and collected Xavier portrayed in previous films.

“Charles is caught up in himself.” he continues. “He enjoys success and is proud, and he’s not the selfless person that he becomes. You look at the relationship with Raven – who becomes Mystique – and you examine that relationship and the way he treats her like a living experiment. She’s an assistant to him and he cares for her, but there’s his ego and condescending big-brother attitude as well. You see it in the way he treats the others. In the “later” movies, he’s exorcised that from his personality. For me, trying to keep that ego as an underpinning of the character is important.”

Read the full interview at Hero Complex.