New 'X-Men' Star Christopher Abbott Shares His Charles Xavier-Like Experience

Christopher Abbott, who has been cast as Charles Xavier in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's X-Men reboot, said that he has developed an interest in the idea of "consciousness" and that he had a telekinetic experience in real life. He prefaced his comments by saying that the story needs proper context and that he may come across as a "crazy person," but that he was able to perform an act known as "remote viewing." In a chat with Josh Horowitz on the sidelines of his new release, Netflix's East of Eden limited series, Abbott also spoke about the casting process of the upcoming X-Men movie, which will be directed by Jake Schreier.

He said that he auditioned for the role with "dummy sides" because he hadn't yet read a script for the film, which will also feature Sadie Sink, Inde Navarrette, and Kit Connor. He revealed that the sides he was given were "very human." Abbott added, "The fun part for me is the journey of figuring out how I'm going to do it. A true acting challenge. I have some ideas for the approach. I've been very interested lately in just broadly the idea of consciousness. I'm not saying I'm going to do method acting here and try to be psychic by the time I do this movie." This opened a Pandora's box and prompted Horowitz to ask if Abbott could read minds. The actor hesitantly recalled an anecdote about being able to describe a painting in an entirely different city. In his words:

"Do you know what remote viewing is? This is going to make me seem like a crazy person. I did an exercise with a friend, and their relative was in a house in Long Island. There was a picture in the house in Long Island, and I was supposed to guess what it was. Very long story short, I didn’t get it, but I did end up getting a very big painting that was in the room, and I had to draw it, and it matched pretty well. I shouldn’t have even brought this up.”