Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) is currently filming 20th Century Fox‘s upcoming X-Film, X-Men: First Class in London. Bryan Singer conceived the story for First Class and Matthew Vaughn, along with his writing partner Jane Goldman (Stardust) re-wrote the script.

MTV recently spoke with James McAvoy, who was the first actor cast in the film and plays the young Professor Charles Xavier (a.k.a. Professor X). McAvoy explained how he planned on distinguishing his performance from Patrick Stewart‘s earlier portrayal of Xavier.

McAvoy said:

“I think the fun about these films, when you go back and you either reboot or do a prequel, is you get to see how people became who they are. That means that you have to do them differently and by the end of the movie you have to do them the same way. The interesting journey is what happens to them, what changes them, what makes them evolve – not just mutate, but emotionally and psychologically evolve.”

McAvoy joked that he wanted to, “bury Patrick’s performance,” but meant that because this is a prequel, he doesn’t necessarily have to imitate Patrick Stewart‘s performance, and hinted that his Professor X could end up closer to Stewart’s interpretation by the end of the film:

“I would suggest by the end of the movie and the start of the next movie, it’ll be more like what Patrick does,” he added. “Or maybe not. Maybe it will still be in a period of flux, if there is a new movie.”

The film stars James McAvoy, Kevin Bacon, Caleb Landry Jones, Lucas Till, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegi, Jason Flemyng, January Jones, Zoë Kravitz, Bill Milner, Michael Fassbender, Álex González and Oliver Platt.

X-Men: First Class is slated to hit theaters on June 3rd, 2011.