Michael Jackson asked to play Professor Charles Xavier in X-Men

X-Men (2000) forever changed the game for superhero movies, but behind the scenes, the making of this series was tumultuous.

Last month marked the 20th anniversary of X-Men, the Marvel movie that started our current superhero-driven film world, and we’re learning all kinds of interesting behind-the-scenes facts. For example, apparently Michael Jackson made a pitch to play Charles Xavier, aka Professor X.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, X-Men producer Lauren Shuler Donner explained how things went down. “I said to him, ‘Do you know Xavier is an older white guy?’ And Michael said, ‘Oh yeah. You know, I can wear makeup.'”

Jackson made a presentation to sell himself for the role, playing his 1996 short film film Ghosts, where he portrayed a 60-something white mayor. According to Donner, he wore sunglasses and refused to shake hands.

According to THR, the studio “never seriously considered Jackson for the role,” with one former executive noting that he was then facing serious allegations of sexual misconduct at the time. The role, of course, eventually went to Patrick Stewart, becoming one of his most iconic parts.

X-Men kicked off a hugely popular series of movies that grossed over $6 billion in the past 20 years. The final movie in this cycle may be The New Mutants, which is tentatively set to release on August 28. After that, with Fox sold to Disney, we may be due for a reset of the X-Men universe.

And that may be what the movie franchise needs, both because it’s getting long in the tooth and because you can’t talk about Fox’s X-Men movies without talking about Bryan Singer, who directed four of the most successful and who is inextricably tied to the franchise.

The Hollywood Reporter article is mostly dedicated to examining this complicated legacy, talking to people who were there at the time about Singer’s history of bad behavior or set. “He was very nervous and he would act out when he was insecure, as many people do,” Donner remembered. “But his way of acting out would be to yell and scream at everybody on the set. Or walk off the set or shut down production.” For the record, Donner didn’t attend the X-Men premiere out of frustration.

One memorable incident on the set of X2 involved producer Tom DeSanto, who became fearful that someone on set was going to get hurt when Singer was incapacitated after taking a narcotic. Several crew members were also on the drug. Singer plowed ahead with shooting anyway, which resulted in a botched stunt that left Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) bleeding. No stunt coordinator was present because the scene was supposed to have been shot the following day.

Eventually, DeSanto prevailed on producer Ralph Winter to shut the set down. In the aftermath, the studio sided with Singer, who was proving to be a big box office draw, and told DeSanto to return to Los Angeles. That prompted most of the main cast members, still in their X-Men costumes, to confront Singer in his trailer, threatening to quit if DeSanto, the guy trying to protect them, was sent away. This is when Halle Barry (Storm) told Singer to “kiss my black ass,” a line that’s since become well-known but rarely given the proper context.

And of course, Singer himself has been formally accused many times of inappropriate sexual conduct with minors, starting not long before X-Men was greenlit and only really harming his career when the #MeToo movement got underway in 2017. His absences from the set of Bohemian Rhapsody got him fired as director on that movie, and he was later replaced as the director on Red Sonja.

“You have to understand, the guy was brilliant, and that was why we all tolerated him and cajoled him,” Donner said. “And if he wasn’t so fucked up, he would be a really great director.”

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