You know, if I was scared.

It was a scary move to just uproot yourself from Oklahoma

and move to California without really knowing anybody,

and I say, "No, it was the opposite.

"It was thrilling.

"It was exciting because I was doing what I wanted

"to be doing."

I wasn't mature enough or old enough to know

how badly I could fail.

Going back to Oklahoma and finishing school just wasn't

an option in my mind.

I'm very grateful that the business

and the fans have allowed me to play around a little bit

and not just do one thing.

I'm James Marsden and this is the timeline of my career.

[upbeat music]

- Maggie! - Daddy.

- Mr. Sheffield, I was just--

- You were just leaving!

- Right.

- My very first job was the pilot episode

of The Nanny, starring Fran Drescher.

I had two lines.

I had just moved to Los Angeles from Oklahoma.

I was 19 and...

I was just young and, I guess, naive enough

and confident enough to make the move.

I got an apartment and, luckily, I had a friend

of my father's, who was a manager at the time,

he agreed to get me new headshots

and send me out on auditions,

and this was one of the very first audition I went on.

Again, it was a couple of lines.

I was making out with the daughter on a balcony,

I was asked to leave the party.

It didn't...

It wasn't really any big stretch

but if you weigh that between staying in Oklahoma

and working at a fast food restaurant,

I was excited and over the moon just to be doing something,

anything at all as a paid actor.

- So you studs lined up who you're taking

to the Homecoming dance yet?

- I was going to take Julia Roberts

but she got married on me.

Har-dee-har-har.

- Chad Westerfield in Saved By The Bell: The New Class.

Got to check that off the old career bucket list.

That first year of my career in '93,

I did a lot of episodic comedy TV, stuff like that.

I did Blossom, I did an episode of Party of Five,

so it was all like...

When you're starting out,

you kinda just take whatever comes your way.

I was a big fan of the original Saved By The Bell.

It was a cool kinda welcoming into the business

to be a part of something that I remember sitting

on my couch, in my living room in Oklahoma, watching.

- Har-dee-har-har.

- I made a mistake and I am never gonna be forgiven for it.

I am always suspect because I screwed up!

- My So Called Life was just starting to take off.

They wanted to sort of Jared Leto kind of young,

long haired teenager who is one of several adopted kids

by this family, who also adopt all these animals,

hence Second Noah.

You know, we shot it on film.

It was a ABC primetime family show.

Like, that's when I started showing up

in Tiger Beat magazine.

Remember all those teen beat magazines?

I remember after we shot the pilot,

we had a big, kind of, dinner party with the cast

and the producers at this steakhouse in Tampa, Florida,

I think I probably had a drink

and I probably shouldn't have been drinking at the time,

and I got up and sang some old standards,

and the producer looked at me and she goes,

"When this goes to series, you're gonna be in a band."

And sure enough, the series got picked up

and she had me singing every episode with my guitar,

looking all smoldering and singing about all my...

My sadness lurking inside.

- See what I mean?

- Where's my sister? - She's upstairs sleeping.

- Where are my parents? - At a meeting.

- Yeah, what meeting? - Steven, you're hurt.

- I'll live.

- So I started auditioning for more film roles

and Disturbing Behavior came along.

That was David Nutter,

who was a really great television director,

did a lot of The X-Files.

David really wanted to make it really smarter

than your run-of-the-mill teen horror flick, I guess.

So it was a little more psychological

than some of the other jump scare teen horror films.

And there was this young newcomer to

the business named Katie Holmes,

and she had done this show called Dawson's Creek.

I was like, "Well, that seems like really good company.

"That show is just blowing up."

It was the first time for me to be cast

in a lead role, really, as like the guy.

I'm on a poster.

I'm on a movie poster at a bus stop.

There was a building on the side of Sunset Boulevard

that was my face plastered on it with Katie Holmes as well,

and Nick Stahl.

I didn't wanna get cocky because I always felt like

as soon as you get comfortable,

they're just gonna pull the rug out from under you

and it's all gonna go away.

But this was my first foray into doing a film

that was gonna end up in theaters,

which was pretty damn exciting at the time.

- It's fine.

- Gossip and news are the same thing,

they've always been the same thing.

People tell stories, that's what makes us human.

- I was still trying to find my footing

as far as what type of roles I really wanted to pursue.

You know, I was young and I wanted to be taken seriously

as an actor, and I still do,

but I think every guy goes through that James Dean period

where they just...

They want to be Marlon Brando or James Dean

and to do that, you have to prove that you're

a dramatic actor.

That cast was Lena Headey,

who we all know now from Game of Thrones,

Norman Reedus, who we all know now from Walking Dead,

Josh Jackson, Kate Hudson, Eric Bogosian.

I mean, it was an insane cast,

And Davis Guggenheim directed the movie.

And he had me and Lena, and Norman share an apartment

in Soho in New York City

because these three were roommates.

It was the first time I felt like I'm being treated

like a significant actor,

like someone whose got skills and natural ability

and can kind of flow on set.

It turned out to be a good film.

- And I like gossip, it's fun.

- It must just burn you up that a boy like me saved

your life, huh?

You gotta be careful, I might not be there next time.

Oh, and Logan,

stay away from my girl.

- On Gossip, the costume designer,

she was getting ready to work on this

new Fox film called X-Men,

and I was like, "What's X-Men?

"You mean, like, the comic book X-Men?"

She was like, "You'd be great for one of the roles.

"You should come in and audition," that's how she talked.

I immediately called my friends from Oklahoma

that were big comic book nerds and I said,

"Who is this guy, Scott Summers, Cyclops?

"Tell me more about him"

and they gave me every edition comic that I should read.

"This is very insightful into who he is

"and where he comes from and..."

I also realized that the guy is like six foot five

in the comic and I'm, you know, five ten,

five ten and a half, five ten and a quarter.

So I remember going into the first audition,

they were having me read with Famke.

Famke's really tall so I wore big boots,

to give myself a little extra height,

and a tight T-shirt, did push ups,

and I did these curls with my arms to get all pumped.

And, you know, it's just what you do as an actor...

Or I did anyway, I don't do it anymore.

I auditioned for X-Men, I think, four or five times.

My last audition,

I didn't hear back for a while and I thought,

"Oh well, I'm not even gonna ask my agent who got cast.

"It'll just bum me out."

I remember getting a call, thinking that

that ship had sailed,

and I remember them saying,

"Congratulations, you booked Cyclops, you booked X-Men."

And I thought, "There's no way, that's...

"How?"

I think what originally had happened was

that Jim Caviezel had been cast.

I still thank him to this day for that.

For whatever reason he had to drop out for, thanks

'cause that was a big one.

But this cast with Ian McKellen and Halle Berry,

Patrick Stewart, very fresh faced Hugh Jackman.

Hugh and I, we put our suits on for the very first time

and they were these one piece, leather suits

that had no side-to-side movement at the waist

because it was all just one piece,

and we had to vault over this wall

and none of us could get over the wall

because our suits were so stiff.

Add to that, that I couldn't see out of these glasses

or the visor that I was wearing.

I've never felt less like a superhero.

I think, at some point, we all were scared

that we might lose our jobs on the first one.

During the process, no one really felt like it was working.

Like, this could be cool or it could be a disaster.

And we had our premiere on Ellis Island,

overlooking the Twin Towers with fireworks going off

and it was just like, this is what I imagined

when I was a kid of what Hollywood,

or having success in Hollywood, would look like.

It was pretty spectacular and a lot of fun

to watch it take off.

And then even more fun to step into the second one.

- No, no, no, it's okay. It's okay, it's me.

I'm so sorry.

- We came back and the scope was bigger,

the script was bigger,

the costumes were more fine-tuned and refined

and there was a little more muscle built-in to the leather.

A little more mobility in the movement of the suits.

It was feeling like the train was just starting to take off.

They just had the following formula.

The recipe was spot on and it worked

and I got to be a part of it.

- Scott!

- [shrieks] Stop!

- Something big happened that made us all think,

"Well, we're not sure that they're gonna do a third one."

There hadn't been a script yet.

Bryan Singer left the franchise to go do Superman.

They asked if I wanted to play a role in that movie.

- That article that you wrote...

- "Why The World Doesn't Need Superman."

- No, no, no, no, the other one from years ago,

before we met. - Well, which article?

I wrote dozens about him.

I was practically his press agent.

- "I Spent The Night With Superman."

- Superman had left, Lois Lane had stayed behind

and found a guy, a human, who is close as to Superman

as possible,

and I was like, "Sure, I'll take that role."

And then I heard the wheels started turning much faster

on X-Men three.

There was a moment where it felt like it might've been