X-men Origins: Wolverine
Know one knew in 2000 just how successful the X-Men franchise was going to be but now in 2009 Hugh Jackman is a major Hollywood star and about to reprise the role of Wolverine for the fourth time.
He is returning to the role that shot him to fame in the first spin off X-Men Origins: Wolverine that looks further into Logan's dark and murky past.
Gavin, first of all, how was it to join the ‘X-Men’ family knowing the expectation that was on your shoulders, even before the cameras started rolling. Were you at all apprehensive or nervous?
Gavin Hood: No kidding. It was both intimidating and also very exciting. I have to say that this good man here (indicates Hugh Jackman) is as you see him: generous, warm and made me feel very at ease. I hope I’ve said that to you once or twice, Hugh?
Initially, I didn’t quite know why he called me for this job. As you all know, I haven’t done a comic book movie before so I was slightly sceptical. Hugh comforted me by saying that he hadn’t read the comics before he started, but then he got involved and became a geek, and told me to go away and take a read. I did, and here we are and I’m very pleased and fortunate to have done that.
Hugh, Wolverine as we know is indestructible and has eternal youth, like yourself but he’s scared of flying. Do you have any of these little phobias about flying, or have you had a horrible moment in the air; susceptible to the vagaries of turbulence?
H Jackman: No, I love flying. I don’t know why I chose that, it’s not from the comic book. I’ve just always liked the idea. I think it began ever since I saw ‘Indiana Jones’ and he was scared of snakes.
It seemed a little abstract but I loved the idea. I just like the vulnerability of someone who’s animalistic, and it made sense to me that he wouldn’t appreciate being out of control whilst up in the air. Personally I love it, so they were some of the greatest acting challenges in the movie!
How much of the stunt work do you do in the film, and how much is down to stunt people? Is there anything that you wouldn’t do?
HJ: I don’t know on a percentage level how much of it is me. A lot of it’s me. I only did one take of jumping from the Humvee to the helicopter I’m only joking, I didn’t do that. I enjoy doing the stunts, I must admit. I have a bit of a sport background; I was never great at it but I enjoyed doing it.
I’ve got a bit of a dance background too, and to me stunts and stunt fight choreography is a mixture of the two - sport and dancing - so I really enjoy doing that. I think audiences deserve it. Audiences are smart and work out when you’re using a body double or face replacement, so whenever you can do the stunts yourself it helps the audience get into it.
When I was a kid at school, when I was twelve or thirteen, I remember doing something like we did today [Jackman and Hood have just abseiled down the side of the News International building] and being absolutely terrified.
I grew up with older brothers and sisters, so they were always doing things that seemed above my age. I remember being so upset with myself that I was scared of heights that I went down every day to the diving boards at my school - the one, three and ten metre boards - and I remember jumping off the three until I wasn’t scared, and then the ten I did it for about a month until I was no longer scared, and from that moment I’ve loved it.
So maybe as an insider, I hate being frightened of things. I’m not someone who could say 'I’m scared of flying, I won’t fly.' For me, somehow fear seems to creep over every part of your life, so if there’s something I identify as frightening to me I want to tackle it.
Hugh, there’s been a glut of comic book inspired movies already and there’s plenty more to come. How much pressure did you feel to show audiences something they hadn’t seen before, or to do something different in this movie?
HJ: I think there’s always a desire as an actor to push yourself to do more than you’ve done, and Gavin and I talked about this from the beginning. There may’ve been to some people querying what this movie was. I hate it when people use the word 'spin-off' because it’s not.
They ask ‘Is this ‘X-Men 4’ in disguise?’ ‘What is this?’ To which I say look, expectations are high; we have to go beyond in every way, story-wise, mining the depths of the characters, the emotion, the humour, the action. In every way we had to try to exceed people’s expectations.
Physically, I wanted to be more the animalistic side of the character that I saw, so for me that’s just a way of life. I’m sure you’re the same (indicates Gavin Hood); you want every movie to be better than the last. You want the visual effects to be better then they’ve ever been before. That’s just blind ambition probably.
Can I ask you both: in your fantasies, have you ever imagined any special power that you would like to have, apart from flying?
GH: As a kid, I wanted to be able to fly. My dreams were to fly, so I think this idea that one can have some sort of physical mutation and do extraordinary things is very much a kids’ fantasy. People have different ways of expressing it, but certainly as a kid mine was to take off and float above it all. Maybe that was my fantasy of escaping.
HJ: For me it was always the water. There was a TV show, ‘The Man from Atlantis’. I used to spend hours in the swimming pool kicking like that and wondering why I wasn’t getting anywhere. He just flies through that water. The desire to breathe underwater was always mine.
GH: You got that fantasy fulfilled in the movie didn’t you? Well, we stuck him in a tank for two days with nose plugs that kept breaking and water that kept going down the back of his throat.
Was that the most unpleasant sequence for you to do?
HJ: Without a doubt the water kept going up my nose. But the more uncomfortable part of it was that I was being directed by Gavin, who had his sleeve rolled up and his hand in the tank squeezing my toes, with a different code for when to wake up, when to die etc.. I felt like I was playing ‘this little piggy went to market’ for two days.
G.H: We tried to get an underwater speaker in so we could talk to him. We tried some sort of ear piece thing, but that was hopeless. So we had an underwater speaker that, in theory, Hugh would understand what I was saying if I spoke very carefully, because we’ve got camera moves that are happening that have to be timed to when he’s thrashing, and when the heart rate goes to zero and he dies.
It sounds very silly but it’s quite tricky. So we developed this very high-tech way of doing it: I grabbed his big toe, and I said ‘When I give it a good tug once - that’s when you start thrashing, when I tug twice, you thrash some more.’ I think it was three hard tugs and then you die, and then a gentle squeeze to the baby toe and that’s when you start to wake up.
HJ: Gavin’s a very enthusiastic director, as you can tell. I think I had three dislocated toes from that sequence! (Laughs)
Did you wear the nose clip that they wear during the Olympics in the ‘synchronised drowning’?
HJ: I had a nose plug, but they just don’t work when you’re thrashing about!
Did not having that set of actors from the first three ‘X-Men’ films beside you change your approach? Was it a different experience?
HJ: Of course. It was different actors and it took me about two months to get over not having Halle Berry on set every day! We feverishly tried to rewrite that but we couldn’t work it out! It was so different in many ways, and because I was involved as a producer I was so involved with the casting, that unlike other movies, by the time we got to shooting I was intimately involved in it.
I was excited by the time we got there. For three films I played a character who had no idea of his past or how old he was, or where he’d been or what had happened to him - except it was probably bad. To actually have those blanks filled in, to make a film about those blanks was really terrific.
It was clear to me that Gavin, despite being very humble about his abilities, was a great person for this film because we’re going from a large ensemble piece down to one character and Gavin knows how to tell a story.
He knows how to carefully map an emotional journey of a character and the arc of that, as well as the size of the movie, and was able to push me. I can imagine as a director it must be hard if you’re going up to a person who’s played a part three times already. You’d think, ‘well maybe he knows better than me’, but Gavin pushed me, which was what I wanted.
Perhaps both of you could talk a little bit about working alongside Liev Schreiber, because I’ve never seen him as scary or as physical in any other movie in his life. He matches you blow for blow in all those fight scenes, and it was inspired casting but I wouldn’t have thought of him in the first place.
HJ: He was the first person I wanted in the film. I worked with him in ‘Kate & Leopold’ and he did this stunt that really didn’t have to be done. It was, to this day, the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. I know him personally as a friend; he’s physically unbelievably strong and capable and agile, so I knew he could fulfil that, and I was excited that people didn’t know he could do that.
Then his competitive nature came out. If I was eating steamed chicken and steamed veggies, all of a sudden he was eating steamed chicken and veggies. When we were lifting weights together he would always say ‘I’m not as strong, I can’t lift that’, then he’d do it.
When we were fighting there was a nice little edge where we were basically punching the crap out of each other. No one knows how to play a villain better than the English. You guys have produced the best villains of all time on film and Liev understands what that is. There has to be a depth, there has to be understanding.
He has the physicality; he’s menacing, but also he relishes it. You always want him on screen, he loves it, he’s quite delicious! He can give a line and make you laugh, and he’s got pretty good mutton chops too. I’m really proud of his performance.
GH: Yes, I’m very proud of it too. I think one of the challenges when you’re doing a movie with Hugh Jackman and Hugh, as you can see, worked out and is slim now. He was so buff in the movie it was terrifying! He worked so unbelievably hard.
At 4.30 in the morning, no matter how late we’d shot the night before, he was training to stay in that kind of shape. Then we needed an actor to be a worthy antagonist. But we needed that on two levels: we needed someone who would be physically believable as being able to come up against Hugh Jackman, and fortunately Liev is about 6’ 3" or 6’ 4" too.
I’m about 6’ 1" and it was still kind of intimidating. But more importantly for me we needed someone with the dramatic power that could give you a strong, intelligent villain, so that Logan could genuinely feel like the confused younger brother.
The other thing that was important that wasn’t initially present was to make these two characters half-brothers. The hardcore fans have some dispute over this, as I think we should all know. Some people say, ‘Ha! Victor Creed isn’t Wolverine’s half-brother!’ and others say, ‘No, of course he is! There’s the character Dog in the ‘Origins’ story and he becomes Sabre-tooth.’
Well, I want to say to all the fans: doing the research I’m stuck with this dilemma, and I absolutely chose unashamedly to go with the version that the fans have where Victor Creed is Wolverine’s half-brother. Why? Because as a dramatist, when you’re looking for an emotional conflict, we all know that the greatest emotional conflict happens within families.
To have this kind of protagonist and antagonist who are related just gives a tremendous emotional fuel to the action. So you’ve got this wonderful emotional connection, and then you’ve got these guys who were willing to put in the kind of work they did. For a director that’s just a dream. I get two great dramatic actors competing to be the toughest guy in the room. It’s perfect!
As an actor, what was the attraction of playing Wolverine, considering his conflicted nature and all the mental processes you have to go through to get yourself in place? Did you get face ache from growling and grimacing a lot?!
HJ: It’s exactly as you said in your question. It’s very challenging to be someone who’s at war with himself all the time. There’s a conflict going on in extreme ways - we all experience it on some level - there’s the controlled and the chaotic side, the animal and the human, and these things are always at war within him.
This is one of the things that Gavin and I really resonated with right from the beginning. To me, one of the great things is that he partly wants to connect and fall in love - there’s a love story in the movie - and part of him wants to retreat and to be completely on his own and rely on absolutely nobody.
Both of those terrify him, and both are exciting to him. As an actor, these dualities are things you look for in a character. I never thought I’d find them in a comic book series, but you can struggle in any movie to find that kind of thing going on. So I feel like although I didn’t have any other choices at the time, when I landed Wolverine I really lucked out. He’s one of the more interesting characters from a comic book series.
GH: I feel the same. I feel I lucked out when you said to me, ‘Go and read these comic books.’ I confess I didn’t know the comics and I was somewhat sceptical. I went away and read them and what I started to realise is exactly what you were saying. He was a comic book hero who wasn’t the good guy going after the bad guy, but in fact the good guy and the bad guy kind of coexist within him.
It’s so much more interesting to me to have a hero, in a mythic way, who isn’t either the guy with the forces of good behind him or, to touch on what Hugh was saying, the guy who’s just emotionally in control all the time, that old figure of the lone rider who comes into town and is completely in control.
In some ways I think that image is quite dangerous for young men because it says you should never show emotion, you should always be cool, you should make love with a woman and ride off into the sunset and don’t get too involved.
It’s a kind of male fantasy in a way but it’s potentially a dangerous fantasy, because it’s where Victor Creed ends up. You end up feeling isolated and alone and miserable, and going to beat the shit out of your brother saying, ‘I need someone to connect with’ which is what his real problem is. So in ‘Wolverine’ we have a modern character in a sense who actually needs connection. Yet he’s in conflict with his own testosterone. He’s a great character.
When you heard that the movie had leaked onto the internet, what was your reaction? Did you go all Wolverine yourself? Also, what was the significance of the post-credits scene?
HJ: The day after it was leaked I was in the studio, and seeing people working many nights without sleep to finish the movie. What was leaked was many months old. It’s kind of like a Ferrari without an engine in it.
It was heartbreaking for the people working so hard to finish the film and have it ready for the fans to watch on the big screen, which is what it was meant for. Then there was a great rally from the online community, which was very heartening and encouraging, and from the fans, and I think now we’ve put it behind us.
I’m excited about the movie coming out and I’m really confident that if people are really into the movie they’ll want to see it on the big screen, as that’s what it was made for. I don’t know what to say about the post-credits scene.
Yes, there is a scene at the end of the movie, and if you don’t have to worry about a babysitter and want to wait through the credits there is a cool little scene which might foreshadow something that goes on in the first ‘X-Men’ film.
GH: This may or may not be the same scene in different continents.
HJ: There are different versions, but I don’t want to give it away.
From a female perspective, have you both worked at Wolverine being quite a sexy character because the female audience will obviously think that he is?
GH: Good, then we’ve succeeded. Hugh Jackman is in phenomenal shape. Mums have to want their kids to go to see this movie right? We want Mums to see this movie! It’s time we had a movie for Mums to go to see with their kids.
Hugh is in such great shape that it was a choice of whether he was going to wear the yellow spandex suit that some of the fans think is great in comics or were we going to let him be naked? It didn’t seem like much of a choice.
But even in the character there are some traits that women will find hugely sexually attractive.
HJ: And what are they?
Vulnerability, and those mutton chops
HJ: Would someone mind telling my wife that! Or maybe she’s got used to them after ten years and thinks, ‘Oh, that look again!’ It’s a little ‘Pride & Prejudice’ isn’t it?
So sexiness is something you’ve worked at; something you’ve consciously thought about for the character.
HJ: No, it’s not something I’ve consciously thought about. Except there is a love story here and I think it’s unusual to see. I don’t think we’ve actually seen Wolverine genuinely care for someone; feel for someone. There was that with Rogue, there was a kind of unrequited love with Jean Grey, but to have him in love with someone is something new.
I think what we were working at was, ‘Yes, he’s in love, but there’s still something missing for him.’ The idea of him living, as Stryker says, in a little house on the prairie with a school teacher is not him either.
There’s part of him which is a warrior, he’s always uncomfortable. I have to say my intention with the physicality of it was when I saw Robert De Niro in ‘Cape Fear’, in the scene where he’s in a prison and he takes his shirt off.
I was frightened, uncomfortable. There was something about him that was so raw, powerful and dangerous. Since doing my last movie where I was riding on horses you’d finish galloping and you’d see the veins and their muscles, and they’re alive and it’s powerful and a little dangerous. That’s what I wanted, that animalistic quality. I didn’t necessarily want it to look pretty or pin-up-like.
GH: I’ll give you one scene where I knew we had it, when Hugh takes a run across the fields. All the women in the production office found it necessary to come and check on things logistically that day! The other one, where I confess I knew we had something, is when there’s a fantastic shot of Hugh - picking up on your point of vulnerability and physical beauty - at the end of the corridor when he’s had an argument with Stryker.
He walks away and Stryker says, ‘What are you going to do?’ and he says ‘I’m going to find him and kill him.’ He turns, and Don (McAlpine) had lit him so beautifully at the end of that corridor. Initially, Hugh had his shirt done up but it had come undone, and I said ‘leave it like that.’
You don’t tell the actor this, but looking down the lens I first of all see a fantastic close up of vulnerability and determination, and then I go to the mid shot, where you’ve got a six-pack that looks like a twelve-pack.
We would never tell him because he’d be embarrassed, and Don McAlpine would say, ‘This is the moment for the women.’ Why not? In a vulnerable but powerful and magnetic, true leading man way. You pull it off, my friend, and I’m very proud of you.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is out now.
Know one knew in 2000 just how successful the X-Men franchise was going to be but now in 2009 Hugh Jackman is a major Hollywood star and about to reprise the role of Wolverine for the fourth time.
He is returning to the role that shot him to fame in the first spin off X-Men Origins: Wolverine that looks further into Logan's dark and murky past.
Gavin, first of all, how was it to join the ‘X-Men’ family knowing the expectation that was on your shoulders, even before the cameras started rolling. Were you at all apprehensive or nervous?
Gavin Hood: No kidding. It was both intimidating and also very exciting. I have to say that this good man here (indicates Hugh Jackman) is as you see him: generous, warm and made me feel very at ease. I hope I’ve said that to you once or twice, Hugh?
Initially, I didn’t quite know why he called me for this job. As you all know, I haven’t done a comic book movie before so I was slightly sceptical. Hugh comforted me by saying that he hadn’t read the comics before he started, but then he got involved and became a geek, and told me to go away and take a read. I did, and here we are and I’m very pleased and fortunate to have done that.
Hugh, Wolverine as we know is indestructible and has eternal youth, like yourself but he’s scared of flying. Do you have any of these little phobias about flying, or have you had a horrible moment in the air; susceptible to the vagaries of turbulence?
H Jackman: No, I love flying. I don’t know why I chose that, it’s not from the comic book. I’ve just always liked the idea. I think it began ever since I saw ‘Indiana Jones’ and he was scared of snakes.
It seemed a little abstract but I loved the idea. I just like the vulnerability of someone who’s animalistic, and it made sense to me that he wouldn’t appreciate being out of control whilst up in the air. Personally I love it, so they were some of the greatest acting challenges in the movie!
How much of the stunt work do you do in the film, and how much is down to stunt people? Is there anything that you wouldn’t do?
HJ: I don’t know on a percentage level how much of it is me. A lot of it’s me. I only did one take of jumping from the Humvee to the helicopter I’m only joking, I didn’t do that. I enjoy doing the stunts, I must admit. I have a bit of a sport background; I was never great at it but I enjoyed doing it.
I’ve got a bit of a dance background too, and to me stunts and stunt fight choreography is a mixture of the two - sport and dancing - so I really enjoy doing that. I think audiences deserve it. Audiences are smart and work out when you’re using a body double or face replacement, so whenever you can do the stunts yourself it helps the audience get into it.
When I was a kid at school, when I was twelve or thirteen, I remember doing something like we did today [Jackman and Hood have just abseiled down the side of the News International building] and being absolutely terrified.
I grew up with older brothers and sisters, so they were always doing things that seemed above my age. I remember being so upset with myself that I was scared of heights that I went down every day to the diving boards at my school - the one, three and ten metre boards - and I remember jumping off the three until I wasn’t scared, and then the ten I did it for about a month until I was no longer scared, and from that moment I’ve loved it.
So maybe as an insider, I hate being frightened of things. I’m not someone who could say 'I’m scared of flying, I won’t fly.' For me, somehow fear seems to creep over every part of your life, so if there’s something I identify as frightening to me I want to tackle it.
Hugh, there’s been a glut of comic book inspired movies already and there’s plenty more to come. How much pressure did you feel to show audiences something they hadn’t seen before, or to do something different in this movie?
HJ: I think there’s always a desire as an actor to push yourself to do more than you’ve done, and Gavin and I talked about this from the beginning. There may’ve been to some people querying what this movie was. I hate it when people use the word 'spin-off' because it’s not.
They ask ‘Is this ‘X-Men 4’ in disguise?’ ‘What is this?’ To which I say look, expectations are high; we have to go beyond in every way, story-wise, mining the depths of the characters, the emotion, the humour, the action. In every way we had to try to exceed people’s expectations.
Physically, I wanted to be more the animalistic side of the character that I saw, so for me that’s just a way of life. I’m sure you’re the same (indicates Gavin Hood); you want every movie to be better than the last. You want the visual effects to be better then they’ve ever been before. That’s just blind ambition probably.
Tagged in Gavin Hood Hugh Jackman