Still: Fox

James McAvoy is once again bare-headed for his upcoming role in X-Men: Dark Phoenix, his fourth X-Men film. Unlike Patrick Stewart, who’s always big, bald, and beautiful, McAvoy is getting fed up with the look.




In an interview with PEOPLE, McAvoy shared the woes of going bald for the role of Charles Xavier in the latest film in the long-running X-Men franchise. He shaved his head last month, as revealed in a dramatic Instagram video, and has apparently been regretting it ever since.

“Since I did two movies that everybody saw where I had a bald head, now it’s like a fucking beacon. But what do I like about it? Not a lot at the moment. I like when it’s been about five or seven days going in, then it’s cool. But when it’s properly skinhead I look a bit weird,” McAvoy said.


This is the third time McAvoy has sheared his luscious locks to play the mutant hero—although the first time ended up meaning jack-all. When McAvoy originally nabbed the role for X-Men: First Class, he shaved his head for the part...only to find out that director Matthew Vaughn didn’t want Xavier to be bald in his origins debut, and so the actor had to wear a wig. Technically, we didn’t get cueball Xavier until the end of the third flick, X-Men: Apocalypse.

Dark Phoenix is currently in production, directed by Simon Kinberg and with much of the cast from X-Men: Apocalypse reprising their roles, including Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, and Dark Phoenix herself Sophie Turner. And while going bald might be a headache for McAvoy in terms of fan recognition and, um, feeling like a Neo-Nazi...hey, at least he can sleep in later now.

“I do like the fact that I don’t have to do anything in the morning,” he added.

[PEOPLE]