Michael Fassbender has compared his X-Men: First Class character of Erik Lehnsherr to Malcolm X.
The actor is back on the big screen this summer in Matthew Vaughn's prequel to the X-Men trilogy, which looks at the early years of Eric and Charles Xavier.
Speaking to A.V. Club Fassbender said: "With Magneto, there is a very specific history that's happened to him in the comic books, which is pretty heavy.
"So you use all of that, and then their moral standpoint is formed from their history and their environment.
"That's the interesting thing about Magneto. The way we were looking at it was that Charles is like Martin Luther King and Magneto is more Malcolm X."
"That's the difference between him and Charles. Charles has hope in human beings, and Magneto thinks they're just standing in the way of evolution. They're going to wipe us out if we don't wipe them out."
2011 looks set to be the most successful of year of Fassbender's career so far as he is also set to take on the role of Rochester in a remake of Jane Eyre.
He has also completed work on A Dangerous Mind and Haywire and is currently filming Shame with Carey Mulligan and James Badge Dale.
X-Men:First Class is released 2nd June.
Tagged in Michael Fassbender