Michael Fassbender on Magneto's Powers Against Dark Phoenix

Magneto is one of the most powerful villains of the X-Men franchise. The character has lead revolutions among mutants and used his powers to manipulate metal to guide the efforts. Often times, it seems only Charles Xavier is capable of opposing him. In X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Michael Fassbender's Magneto is very much outmatched by the titular character, as a cosmic entity takes control of Sophie Turner's Jean Grey. As a means to show how powerful Jean has become in this conclusive X-Men movie, Fassbender put a bit of extra effort into a scene in which his character is in direct competition with Turner's.

To keep the context of the scene out as a means to preserve spoilers, just know that the scene pitted Magneto and Jean against each other and prompted them to compete for control of a helicopter. Neither of them were flying it but they both wanted to move it in their own ways: Magneto by manipulating metal and Jean by using her telekinetic abilities. In approaching the scene at first, Fassbender says you, "just go for it," when trying to express the powers in action. "It's a helicopter, try and move it," he said. "How does one do that?"

"Don't act it, just do it," Professor X actor James McAvoy added beside him.

"So, yeah, I think with a lot of these scenes, it's just about full commitment and taking it to maybe its furthest point and then bringing it back," Fassbender said. "Never bring it back. And so, you know, just commit, and I wanted to show that Sophie had a lot more power there, so she's very gracefully doing these movements, and I'm like gonna bust a vein. And I wanted to show that surprise with him and the real struggle because we know that at this point, he's a very powerful entity into himself. So if she's doing it with such ease and he's struggling so much, you know you're dealing with something phenomenal."

Speaking of Professor X though, his and Magneto's relationship will continue to show the differences between the characters as any good X-Men movie would call for. "I don't think Erik's the kind of guy that compromises a lot, but he's sort of settled with this idea, okay, at least we have a state, a land that we can sort of create our own laws and rules, and we can sort of live in safety," Fassbender said. "But there's also an element that if he was in trouble, that Erik would come to him because he doesn't forget what Charles did for him."

X-Men: Dark Phoenix hits theaters on June 7.