One of the young mutants featured in X2, Pyro proves a highly combustible character, a rebel whose ultimate allegiances are decided in the sequel, which arrives in U.S. theaters of May 2.

Aaron Stanford, coming off an acclaimed starring role in Tadpole, plays Pyro and last week sat down with fans for an online chat. Following is an edited transcript of that chat.

QUESTION: What would you do if you have those powers in real life?

STANFORD: I think somebody asked me that in an interview before. I think, right now, I'd pick a night and I'd light every single cigarette in the bars in New York City for one night and repeal the no-smoking law for one evening. Just for one evening.

QUESTION: How do you keep your feet on the ground when you go from something small like Tadpole to X2?

STANFORD: I really just try to stick with people who have grounded you before, people that you knew before, and try to stick to - however you can -- the same routines that you have in your life before and continue to find pleasure in the same things.

QUESTION: Is Pyro the bad boy?

STANFORD: He's sort of a bad boy. I'd like to think of him more as misunderstood. One of the things that I keyed into in the characters is that I think that the X-Men, in general, are really outsiders; they're outcasts from the rest of the world. And I think that Pyro is an outcast amongst the X-Men. I think that's what sort of motivates him and there's a lot of anger that comes out of that. And you see that in the film.

QUESTION: Is it more interesting to play outcasts than the boy next door?

STANFORD: Yeah, because I don't think a lot of the times boys next door exist in real life, you know what I mean? I think everybody can relate to feeling like a freak or like an outsider or something's wrong with them. It's just human and it's interesting to manifest human behavior.

QUESTION: If you were a mutant, which powers would you like to have beyond Pyro's?

STANFORD: I've been waiting for that one. I've been thinking recently that I really kind of like Colossus. He can just form a big shield of metal all over his body. And I think that there's many times in day-to-day life where you'd like to do that, just put a big metal shield over yourself and let things bounce off.

QUESTION: Because it makes you invulnerable?

STANFORD: Yeah, who doesn't want a big metal shield over themselves sometimes? Don't you?

QUESTION: How much fun did you have on the set?

STANFORD: A lot of fun. We had a lot of downtime. We were there for about six months and we had a lot of time to kill. So myself, Anna Paquin and Shawn Ashmore hung out a lot, along with the writers, Michael Dougherity and Dan Harris. We had a lot of fun, killed a lot of time, played cards and went out. It was good. It was fun.

QUESTION: When you weren't working, did you stay in Vancouver?

STANFORD: I was in Vancouver mostly. There were a couple of times when I had two weeks off or so that I went back to New York. But overall, we stayed there.

QUESTION: Who wins between Pyro and Iceman?

STANFORD: We discussed that. We figured what would happen is that we would both just drown. He would be hitting me with ice and the fire would melt it. I tried for that joke.

QUESTION: Do you think that X2 tries to emphasize more of the psychological aspects of the characters?

STANFORD: Yeah, I think they really tried to bring a human element to all the characters. What sort of sets X-Men apart from the rest of the movies in this genre is that you have super-heroes, but they're for the most part reluctant super-heroes. They're have to deal with the day-to-day problems that somebody would have had they had those powers thrust upon them. So I think, yeah, they really pay attention to the psychology and things that make these extraordinary people human, so that you can relate to them.

Rob Allstetter, Deputy Sports Editor for The Detroit News, has been a comics journalist for the past decade, having written for numerous publications. He currently publishes The Comics Continuum. He can be reached at RobAlls@aol.com.