'X-Men' still marks the spot for Patrick Stewart

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sir Patrick Stewart's acting hero Sir Laurence Olivier once said it's a wonderful thing to hear an audience sob or gasp at his performances, yet nothing compares to hearing people laugh.

In his own career, Stewart has had a lot more of the former, with roles that made the most of his rich baritone. They include memorable characters in Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company, seven TV seasons (and a few movies) as Star Trek: The Next Generation's earnest Capt. Jean-Luc Picard, and the X-Men movie franchise's wise old Professor Charles Xavier.

Yet, even as Stewart takes another turn as the powerful mutant telepath in X-Men: Days of Future Past(opening nationwide Friday), the 73-year-old British actor wants to embrace a more humorous side on screen. Something that matches the goofiness he displays off screen.

"All my life I've had a tendency toward silliness," Stewart says. He recalls filming an episode in Next Generation's first season in 1988 soon after the character Tasha Yar was eaten by an alien oil slick. There was a green mountain on set, and Stewart ran up to it, belting, "The hills are alive with the sound of Tasha!"

"Things like that have always been there," Stewart adds, "but I've always been uncomfortable about letting them out."

It's all stark, post-apocalyptic business, though, when it comes to X-Men. The new film takes place in the future, where Sentinels are taking out superpowered mutants and regular folks. Xavier and master of magnetism Magneto (Stewart's off-screen pal Ian McKellen) task the clawed hero Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to go back to the 1970s and warn young Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) in order to avoid this bleak scenario.

Stewart has been playing Xavier since 2000's first X-Men film, but the biggest difference for him isn't the bigger cast or time-travel storyline. It's that, finally, he gets to wear a real superhero suit rather than the character's usual suit and tie.

"I felt as though I'd finally joined the team for the first time," says Stewart, who donated the future outfits of Xavier, Magneto, Wolverine and Storm (Halle Berry) to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History last weekend.

Xavier is the stalwart sage of the X-Men from the comics, and not only does Stewart continue to bring maturity and intelligence to the role but also emotional stability, says producer Lauren Shuler Donner. "He's the one who has faith in humanity, and you have to feel that heart reaching out to you."

Stewart's quixotic character also has a mischievous playfulness, adds screenwriter Simon Kinberg. There is no physicality to Xavier because he's in a wheelchair, so "it is all from the shoulders up. So much of that comes from the eyes, and there is a twinkle in Patrick's eyes that is true of Patrick and has become true of Xavier."

After nearly 15 years of Stewart playing this role, though, Jackman feels X-Men fans might be surprised at just how "cheeky and wicked" Stewart is when it comes to his off-screen sense of humor. "He's pretty naughty, actually."

Australia native Jackman pegged Stewart as a role model back in drama school — "To watch him do Shylock, it was like he was a rock star," he says. But Jackman's teenage son knows the older thespian best as over-the-top CIA man Avery Bullock on Seth MacFarlane's animated Fox TV series American Dad.

Stewart has been more attracted to funnier roles of late. He has done bits with comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on their shows; filmed a Funny or Die video for the 2012 London Olympics; and, on Ricky Gervais' Extras, he played a variation of himself as a classical actor obsessed with the power of having women's clothes fall off.

So, why the comedic bent? Being a newlywed with wife Sunny Ozell, 36, has reinvigorated Stewart's life "in every way," he says.

Plus, working with MacFarlane has given Stewart "an instinctual voice about what might be funny," the Yorkshire native says.

"I thought if I ever made it into my 70s and was still employable, I'd be playing all the gray-haired, old tragic figures of Shakespeare and other classic theater — Ibsen, Chekhov and so forth. But instead, it's gone in quite another direction."

Stewart does star as a bisexual ballet teacher in the upcoming indie drama Match. But it's balanced out by two MacFarlane projects: The actor plays two sheep in the Western A Million Ways to Die in the West and a British TV newsman in the Starz comedy Blunt Talk.

This side of his career has caused him to revisit that old Olivier quote and how overly serious he used to take acting.

"My whole raison d'etre was to overwhelm people with powerful feelings of emotion and horror and sadness," Stewart recalls. "It never really occurred to me that a laugh might be more valuable to everyone."