Jennifer Lawrence said the newcomers weren't given an easy start: "They really get punched and beaten like the rest of us." To which James McAvoy responds that "they gave as good as they got as well. That's cool." Newcomers to the cast have likened the film to a summer camp where everyone hangs out together both on set and off. "We did everything together," says Sophie Turner, who joined the ensemble as Jean Grey. "Everybody plays together. We had a cast coordinator that organised events for us to go to, so it was like a bonding experience."

Sophie Turner took a break from Game of Thrones to film X-Men

This made it easier for her to work on creating a character. And talking with Famke Jansson, who played Jean in the first X-Men trilogy, helped. "The difference between this and Famke's Jean Grey," Turner says, "is that she's young, insecure and very alienated, even from the other mutants, because she's so powerful. She's also going through all the hormones and the boys and the stuff that every teenager goes through. Being a mutant ain't easy! So there's a real vulnerability to her, and it's great to see how she and Scott [Tye Sheridan as Cyclops] find each other through that alienation. She's a great role to play."

Sheridan's character is also at a difficult point in life. "Scott is angry and a bit lost," he says. "I feel like this is where I've met a lot of my characters, in these sort of young life transitions where they're struggling to figure things out about themselves. The arc for the character is really cool for me. It's not like I'm just stepping into it and I'm a superhero and it's cool and all that with the suit. You see the progression."

For Sheridan, the hardest part was learning to act without using his eyes, because Scott has to wear sunglasses all the time. "One of the most challenging aspects of the role was that I kept hearing the note, 'You just need to act harder,'" he laughs. "We're shooting this big sequence in the third act of the film, and the director is like, 'I just need to see more, you know, anger in your eyes.' Well, I'm shooting lasers out of my eyes, and so I'm trying to figure out how to act with my forehead!"

Watch the trailer for X-Men Apocalypse: