Cyclops & Jean Grey Are Still Learning Their Powers In X-Men: Apocalypse

Since X-Men: Apocalypse is set in 1983 — 10 years after mutants exposed themselves on live-television — we’ll get to meet younger versions of Scott Summers/Cyclops (played by Tye Sheridan) and Jean Grey (played by Sophie Turner). They may be teenagers, but that haven’t fully grasped their full potential and director Bryan Singer shared details of a scene in which their inexperience leads to team work between the two future-lovers.

“They’re in a battle scene and Scott keeps taking off his glasses but he can’t see what he’s trying to hit because he doesn’t have a visor, he doesn’t have any technology,” Singer told Slash Film. “So finally I was like ‘Okay, okay, wait, wait.’ So Jean just grabs the back of his head and starts moving him around. She’s trying to hit the enemy, I don’t want to say who the enemy is, she’s just trying to use them as target practice. So suddenly we did that and we started playing with that and having fun with it and then we were like ‘Oh sh*t, we have to service that and film the other side of it. It’s a scene now! We’re running out of time!’

“They’re kids! They don’t know what to do! She’s trying to figure out her psychic powers, which are much more powerful than she realizes. There’s some heartbreak, beautiful and climactic, again I don’t want to give anything away. But that was one beat that on the day I’m watching him do this and I’m like ‘You can’t see sh*t, you don’t even know what you’re hitting,’ so I said ‘Grab his head, use them for target practice.’ It’s so cute and it brings them together. There are many scenes that bring them together but that’s one that was like the video game version. You get Sophie Turner grabbing Tye Sheridan and using him as a point and shoot.”

Singer then explains another scene in which the young mutants let off some steam at a nearby mall. “We have a scene where some of the mutants decide to play hooky while Xavier is off at the CIA,” the director shared. “They steal one of his really nice cars – and an important thing about ’83 is it’s 10 years after the day that the world discovered mutants. So the world now embraces mutants and accepts them as part of society, so they can go to the mall. Obviously the instigator, Cyclops, who has only been there for like a day, convinces Nightcrawler, Jean, and Jubilee to play hooky, grab a car and go to the mall. It happens to be on a day that something bad happens…”

Following the critically acclaimed global smash hit X-Men: Days of Future Past, director Bryan Singer returns with X-MEN: APOCALYPSE. Since the dawn of civilization, he was worshipped as a god. Apocalypse, the first and most powerful mutant from Marvel’s X-Men universe, amassed the powers of many other mutants, becoming immortal and invincible. Upon awakening after thousands of years, he is disillusioned with the world as he finds it and recruits a team of powerful mutants, including a disheartened Magneto (Michael Fassbender), to cleanse mankind and create a new world order, over which he will reign. As the fate of the Earth hangs in the balance, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) with the help of Professor X (James McAvoy) must lead a team of young X-Men to stop their greatest nemesis and save mankind from complete destruction.

X-Men: Apocalypse hits theaters May 27, 2016.