While the X-Men franchise from Fox’s Marvel era has come to an end, the mutant-based universe still has a big role in today’s current superhero film climate. During its tenure, various stories from the X-Men canon were adapted for the big screen, while also being honored through the Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline.

At this year’s New York Comic Con, a panel was hosted as a reunion for X-Men: Days of Future Past, featuring Elliot Page and James McAvoy. One of the topics addressed was the technical aspects of portraying the famous mutant powers on screen.

McAvoy, who played the younger iteration of Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, shared how “I don’t know who’s got the harder job of conveying, I mean, I’m very expressive with my eyebrows. They are thinning as I get older, which really worries me, because I don’t know if I can do the same kind of work anymore.”

While hoping they can “CGI or AI can help me over that,” he “found that I was acting too much and I was doing too much, which is why I employed the finger,” in reference to Professor X’s abilities. The 46-year-old actor “thought, as soon as I put the finger up there, like I don’t need to do anything, that’s like, wow.”

However, given that this was a prequel to the original X-Men movies, there were talks about how to go about it, as he revealed, “honestly, like when I first said I want to do the finger, there was, it was like a discussion.” McAvoy made it clear that this was not a joke, “We had the finger conversation. I’m not joking, by the way.”

Stressing that “I’m not trying to be a d–k,” the Charles Xavier actor shared that “because I don’t think Patrick ever did that and the other films.” Referencing how “he does do it in the comic books at times, he did do it in the cartoons,” the X-Men prequel lead brought that into his version of the Marvel icon.

McAvoy went on to share, “I was like, Okay, it’s something that he never did. I got to do it. And then there was a whole discussion about fingering myself on camera.” His final time playing the head was in 2019’s Dark Phoenix, directed and written by Simon Kinberg.

Marvel Studios is currently working on rebooting the mutants through a new X-Men movie from Jake Schreier, although no release date has been set yet. Time will tell how the MCU will tackle Professor X, including whether or not he uses a finger to visualize his powers.