Aaron Stanford

It's nice to know when you're a part of a story, it's nice to know at least something about the beginning, middle, and end.

That's just part of being in 'X-Men.' There's, like, 20 main characters, and 15 of them are household names, so obviously you're happy for anything you can get.

I'm sure some of the characters in 'X-Men' had a lot of physically demanding stuff to do, but my character's pretty much stand-and-deliver, stand there and throw fire at people. There's no acrobatics or anything.

I read a lot of war literature.

It's fun playing villains. It's people who are not held by any moral constraints - or any constraints, for that matter. It's a chance to be completely off the leash and do things that you never could in real life.

I never read too many comic books when I was growing up, but I think everyone loved Wolverine, you know what I'm saying?

I like 'The Lord of The Rings' and ninja swords.

Viola Davis, she does have a lot of TV acting jobs, and she's also a very, very accomplished stage actress.

Bruce Dern was fascinating. He's an amazing character. If you put him in a room at a table, you will sit there for the next five days and listen to everything he has to say and be fascinated by it. He's great.

The show is '12 Monkeys,' and I'm playing the role that Bruce Willis played in the original film '12 Monkeys.' It is a show about time travel. My character is from a future post-apocalypse, and he has been given a mission to go back in time to essentially set things right and stop the apocalypse. No big deal.

When you're done with a job, even if you do stay in contact with certain people, it's never quite the same. It's a unique experience when you're working on a film or a television show together. You're together for 16 hours every day, sometimes six days a week. You're just never going to have that proximity again. So you miss people.

I worshiped Judd Nelson in 'The Breakfast Club' growing up. I must've seen that movie 100 times.

It's great to be able to work on some science fiction. I love the genre.

Almost all of my favorite shows are limited series. It just seems to be the better way to go.

As a fan, when I hear that a film is going to be turned into a television show, I do go to that place immediately of, 'Is it going to be any good? Is it going to be a waste of time? Why are they doing it?' It's '12 Monkeys,' and '12 Monkeys' is awesome, so I wanted to be a part of it and work on it.

But a lot of shows, they pose questions and they give you a puzzle where there's no solution.

I'm not your traditional action hero.

I didn't follow the whole 'X-Men' story because it got too complicated. I'd pick up a comic book and have no idea what was going on.

I do know that I've read somewhere that it's been statistically proven that in times of war, horror films are much more popular. I don't know why that is. You'd think it'd be the opposite. You'd think people would want to escape from it.

Wes Craven is obviously a horror film icon so I was definitely very interested in bringing something back to life that Wes had created.

You always take a little bit back with you at the end of the day. I always put a little bit of myself into the characters, too. You find parallels, points of connection, things like that. But I'm not an actor who gets so incredibly haunted by my characters that I can't come back.

You have to find it in the moment, and that's one of the challenges of being an actor - especially a film actor - is that you have to maintain these heightened emotions for long periods of time. There's no trick to it. You just have to do.

People have always liked to be frightened. People love to feel that jolt of adrenaline. People love roller coasters. People love skydiving. These things that really get your heart pumping, and horror films are sort of a safe way to get that rush I guess.

Actors, we like stories, we like storytelling, we love being a part of the story, and if you give us a story that's interesting then we'll want to do it.

My life has been the antithesis of that book 'The Secret'. I've always been interested in doing what I do. I love storytelling and I really enjoyed acting, but it never seemed like a realistic thing.