Actress Sophie Turner on preparing for Jean Grey role.

X-MEN: APOCALYPSE actress Sophie Turner recently spoke with IGN about her upcoming role as Jean Grey, saying she thinks she was cast because “they saw the dark side of [my character] Sansa [in Game of Thrones]. Maybe they’re thinking, ‘Oh, Phoenix, Jean Grey.’ I definitely see a lot of parallels in there.”

“[Jean] struggles with her power and not being accepted in the human world,” she says. “I think in terms of [Game of Thrones], that’s kind of the way Sansa felt in that she really wanted to be a normal princess/queen and live a normal life — and she doesn’t, because of all this havoc happens. I think Jean, in a way, feels that.”

Turner says that while she’ll bring something new to the table, she also wants to emulate Famke Janssen’s performance to a degree.

“I think Famke played Jean incredibly well, but also, I’m playing a younger version of her,” Turner explained. “I want to emulate Famke in a sense, because she has to seem like the Jean in the first two movies, but I’m also going to put my own twist on her. I think I’m also going to take inspiration from the comics. I don’t know, we’ll see. It’s all very secretive at the moment, so I’ve just done my auditions and a few pieces, but I’m really, really excited to play [Jean]. She’s an icon.”

Thanks to Josh Wilding at Comic Book Movies for the heads up!