I didn't read comic books as a child, so I wasn't familiar with Marvel comics or the Sixties TV series, X-Men. When Bryan Singer, the film's director, phoned me, he stressed the story's sociological and political aspects - a kick-ass movie. He said, "Come on down, I'll show you how I'm going to do it." I went to his office and he had it done up in X-Men stuff. It was like a comic convention full of mutant superheroes.
I liked the idea of a big studio picture and I respect Bryan's films, especially The Usual Suspects. Above all, I liked the idea of playing Storm, a character who could manipulate the weather with her mind. She's a Kenyan princess who can fly and wears black leather and a cape and has long white hair. When she controls the weather her eyeballs turn backwards and go white.
Storm is a scientific oddity, a freak of nature if you like, and the system doesn't like her or her friends with their extraordinary powers. They are outcast mutants who are the next link in the chain of evolution ? and the Senate wants to bump them off. There are plenty of allegories on racism and bigotry.
Ian McKellen, from Bryan's film Apt Pupil, plays Magneto, evil mutant leader, while Storm's colleagues include Famke Janssen as the telekinetic Jean Grey and James Marsden as Cyclops, with energy-beam eyes. Under a telepathic professor, played by Patrick Stewart, we learn to control our special powers for the "real" world. I hope we got it right because Stan Lee, who created the X-Men comics and about 90 per cent of Marvel's characters, is our executive producer.
