Hugh Jackman has a pointed conversation with Hollywood.com as he returns to the role of the feral but noble mutant Wolverine for X-Men: The Last Stand.
Hollywood.com: Both you and Wolverine are old hands on the X-Men team, off- and on-screen, at this point. Were you comfortable with the kind of leadership role that’s thrust upon both of you this time around?
Hugh Jackman: Becoming part of the team is pretty much a given at this point. Like in the first script that I got, he kind of had a room at the mansion, and I said to them that I could never see him having a room there. They might have had that in the comic book, but I thought that was always going to be a bridge that was too far for him to cross. But it’s a given that he’s a part of the team, and it’s really about what role he’s going to take. As you know there is a huge shake-up in the team fairly early on, and so will he step up or won’t he? He’s essentially a loner, and if anything needs to be done, he just does it himself and doesn’t feel comfortable relying on anyone else.
HW: This film, even more than the others, deals with the ambiguous nature of Professor Xavier’s methods, as well as Wolverine and all of the characters’ internal struggles. Was that a key part of the allure of this one for you?
HJ: Yeah. I think that X-Men only works in its ambiguity. I don’t think that it works with pure heroes and pure villains, and in every character you can see that. I think that there is a case that every character wanting to cure themselves is wrong, and I think that’s what makes it good. I don’t know if you’ve ever read Nelson Mandela’s book, but in his last paragraph–and you’d have to say that he’s probably one of the greatest living human beings and that his cause was the most just–and at the very end of his book he says that he questions whether he did the right thing in his life or not. Because he sacrificed risking being the father of a nation for being a poor father to his children, because he was basically never there for his children. He knew that when he went into it, and so he has lived with that guilt and doubt about whether he did the right thing. Now that’s Nelson Mandela, and I think that if you don’t have that feeling about Xavier, that he doesn’t wrestle with that…I think that Xavier knows what is going to happen. He knows what is at stake and you have to feel his weariness. He’s going against his nature, effectively, and that’s what Wolverine is going through, too. And for me, that’s what I love about the movie.
HW: What was the coolest stunt you got to perform yourself?
HJ: Flying back through the trees. I got up to like 80 miles an hour going through there. The first three takes are unusable because it’s like I’m on a ride. When I go on those rides, I giggle, and on the first three takes I was giggling. I couldn’t help it. Trust me, eighty miles an hour backwards from a standing start. I was at like eighty miles an hour in like four seconds or less and so we kept ratcheting it up and the stunt guys with me know that I like it and so they would say, “All right, Hugh, we’re going to go at sixty percent.” And I know that means a hundred percent, but they’re saying for everyone–that we’re just going sixty percent for the first one, and then on, like, take four they kind of go to like a hundred and ten percent.
HW: Are you still in the same shape you were for the film?
HJ: I’m probably 15-20 pounds bigger in it than I am now, but this is sort of who I am. I work out every day, but this is how I am naturally. I eat a ridiculous amount of food, probably four thousand calories a day and I train like a bastard, as we say in Australia. Basically, for this I trained every morning for an hour and a half and I hit it pretty hard, and I use it as a time to get into character. So I play Godsmack and Metallica, which is the kind of angriest heavy metal music there is, because if anyone has done any weight lifting there is that moment in almost every set which is similar, in a way, to that moment of when you go berserk into rage or you just start crying. Wolverine always goes into berserk rage and never cries. He never has that breaking point, but when you have the heaviest weight possible above you, in every set there is that moment where it’s like I crank up the music and I get as angry as I can, daily, which is a great warm-up for my character.
HW: Any chance the DVD will show some outtakes from X-Men 3?
HJ: There are many funny takes that you will never see. There is a gag reel that I tell you is the best gag reel that I have ever seen, and if you ever get your hands on it you won’t stop laughing. But you won’t get your hands on it.
HW: There has been some pretty serious planning for a solo prequel film starring Wolverine. How soon do you think that’ll get going, and do you think that there might be an X4 before you get to Wolverine?
HJ: No. I don’t think that there will be an X4. We’ve got a second draft in from David Benioff, who is an amazing writer and a huge fan, and I’m very, very excited about it. So I would say that Wolverine would be the next, but as for when that might happen I don’t know. It is looking very exciting though.
HW: Will we see familiar villains from the X-Men universe, either comics or film?
HJ: It’s too early to say. Too early. It’s even a little… Well, it’s fair to say that it’s probably going to be a prequel, but it’s too early to say exactly who is going to be in it. Basically, I wouldn’t tell you anyway, but I thought it would be nice to say it’s too early [Laughs].
HW: Where would you like to see the character of Wolverine go next?
HJ: I have no idea. I haven’t even thought of that. I think that at the end of this film, it’s a pretty enormous thing that happens and it’s very unsure, even though I think that there’s this fairly good place, I think, in terms of the world of where mutants and humans stand, and so it’s pretty unclear what’s going to happen next.
HW: Can you talk about your upcoming film The Prestige?
HJ: The Prestige is something I’m very excited about. It’s a movie that Christopher Nolan directed, with Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson and David Bowie. How awesome is that? The movie is extraordinary. It was an amazing script and I can’t wait to see it. I love working with Chris and working on that film.
HW: Any truth to the rumor that you’d like a role in the next Batman film that Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale are planning?
HJ: That’s more fanboy stuff, and probably, you know, joking around on set. I mean, there was Christian and I there, and there was one scene in the movie… I don’t want to tell too many details. Chris hates any kind of stuff like that, but there is a scene where if we were both superheroes we would have leapt in and done something, but both of us were standing there doing absolutely nothing and we were kind of laughing that here you have Wolverine and Batman just kind of twiddling their thumbs. There was this potentially very heroic situation, but they’re standing there going [Whistles]. We joked a little bit, but I mean, I’ll be honest with you, if Chris rang me to do something, I think of him that highly, that I would do it. I’m not laying down that I want to be in this movie or that movie, but he’s an amazing director.
HW: Did you and Bale talk much about your respective experiences as superheroes?
HJ: Yeah, absolutely. I really respected that movie, and I really respected what Christian did in it. I thought that similar to what we were trying to do with X-Men, which is making these characters believable and understanding them so that as fantastical as they are you kind of can relate to them and I think that we sort of talked a bit about that. Actors talk about things like, “What did you get in the deal?” It’s a little more that than philosophy general [Laughs].
HW: Speaking of superhero crossovers, you visited the Superman set in Australia and there was a rumor that you filmed a cameo on that. True?
HJ: No. I went and had dinner with Bryan, and I’ve heard that many times for about the last month, but it’s not true. It’s really not true.
