Hugh Jackman

Hugh Jackman

Hugh Jackman portrayed Logan/Wolverine in X-Men, X2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: First Class, The Wolverine, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, Logan and in Deadpool 2 as a cameo, with the use of archive footage. He will once again play the role in the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine Jackman is also the executive producer of X-Men Origins: Wolverine and also portrayed X-24 in Logan.

Significant roles

• Leopold in Kate & Leopold (2001)
• Gabriel van Helsing in Van Helsing (2004)
• Memphis in Happy Feet (2006)
• Roddy St. James in Flushed Away (2006)
• Robert Angier in The Prestige (2006)
• The Drover in Australia (2008)
• Charlie Kenton in Real Steel (2011)
• Bunnymund / The Easter Bunny in Rise of the Guardians (2012)
• Jean Valjean in Les Miserables (2012)
• Keller Dover in Prisoners (2013)
• Vincent Moore in Chappie (2015)
• Blackbeard in Pan (2015)
• Bronson Peary in Eddie the Eagle (2016)
• P.T. Barnum in The Greatest Showman (2017)
• Sir Lionel Frost in Missing Link (2019)

Quotes

• "As the movie starts, I think it's fair to say that he's part of the team of some kind. I wouldn't say he's a card-carrying X-Man or that he has a permanent suite at the mansion, but really, in this movie, his journey is about more what role he will take. He has to take on more responsibility, and as you guys know, it goes against his grain. So at the start of the movie he's obviously hurting from the whole thing with Jean, and in this movie, it goes to another level. It's really how far would he go for the woman he loved, even though, in his case, it's unrequited love."
• "I wouldn't call it pressure, but I suppose as the movie has gone on, I had a little more say in how the movie and script pans out. I have to share a little more of the responsibility ultimately, and I quite like being in that position as an actor. I'm probably more comfortable being in that position than say someone coming in and doing a great character role. I've always felt more comfortable being in the middle of it from the beginning to the end. I like working every day and being there. In this movie there's a whole subplot with Ian McKellen's character that I wasn't in and there was about three weeks where I didn't shoot and it felt really weird. I would visit on set ocassionally and just sort of pop in and I came back to work and felt like, "Alright, I gotta get my legs back here.""
• "I was upset when I heard of Bryan not returning. It was so long before we were shooting the movie, and at that point, I hadn't committed to the movie. I committed to looking at the script. Instinctually, I felt that regardless of who's directing, we have to have a great script. I thought what we came up with and by the way, Matthew Vaughn needs to be credited because he helped to develop that script and he did a great job--in terms of a starting script was the best. Brett did a great job and smartly, didn't try to recreate the wheel. I don't think people who are not very au fait with film will really be able to tell the difference stylistically. Yet, Brett's a really emotional guy, a real passionate guy. In some ways, Bryan's more cerebral where Brett was a little bit more suited to this script, which was more emotional and by the end, more melodramatic. I think it worked but it should be that big because it's the end of the trilogy."
• "Well, I feel very close to Halle, because this is my fourth movie with her. I really think she's an amazing person and actress and I'm really proud of what she's achieved. Yes, we are closer, but we were already close. When you're friends, you're friends. It was great for me to have more to do with Halle, and I had been asking for that on the first two. It's a good dynamic as well cause they're both strong characters."
• "Of course I'm getting into it at the moment because David Benioff is writing a movie version of Wolverine, which is gonna be a prequel. It's gonna deal with the origins of him so I'm into it a lot. In this movie actually we were lucky to have [Second Unit Director] Simon Crane who did Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and he's amazing. I think a lot of the action pieces are well done and he's phenomenal with what he brought to it. Simon came to me and said, "I've got an idea," and showed me some comic books that had some things we could do stylistically that was a bit different. I always saw Wolverine as a street fighter--like watching old Mike Tyson. Nothing pretty, just going for it. Simon said, "If you look in the comic book he has some really cool moves," so we did put a couple of those things into this. That's something that some fans might recognize."
• "Well, my character gives them a hard time, but am I a mentor? I don't think so. I was very happy for that young guy Kelsey Grammer... He's really good. (laughter) I actually became really good friends with Kelsey. The truth of the matter is that he makes me laugh, so there's more footage on the cutting room floor of me laughing, 'cause Kelsey just has a look in his eye that is so wicked. I really loved working with Kelsey. But Ellen Page? I think she's an extraordinary actress. Brilliantly cast. The little boy that plays Leech? Cameron Bright. I didn't actually work with him, but one day, I saw him on set and he's just perfect for that role. He's so brilliant. I saw him in Birth and he was great in that. You can't get him out of your head; it's quite haunting. By the way, Brett is brilliant at casting. I thought Ben Foster was terrific as Angel. It's a tough role to pull off and I really believed his dilemma. I would've liked for him to have more to do, but Ellen did a good job. And Vinnie...(laughs). Vinnie is so much fun to have around. He really popped in the film too; he has a few great lines. Dania was terrific."
• "As we were filming it, we were all very aware that it was pretty heavy. I saw it, and I thought it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. It was a fun moviegoing experience. I think it's satisfying emotionally, as well. There's many scenes and character plots I had seen on the page that I hadn't been on set for filming, but I thought the whole thing with Kitty, Rogue and Bobby worked so well. I loved all the stuff with Patrick Stewart's character and you really got to see the ambiguity of his character early on. His world was a little gray, and he was unsure of some of the things he was doing and some people were questioning him. When I think about it, there were many things that I saw on film where I said, "This is great!" I really enjoyed the complexity and it was great fun. Visually, it's always a shock and a great thrill. It's one of the great joys of doing a film like this. It's a blast. It's one type of filmmaking that you can watch a film as though you haven't been in it, because so many elements aren't there as you're filming."
• "This is, hopefully for me, going to be out of the box. It’s going to be the best one, I hope. Well, I would say that, but I really do feel that, and I feel this is going to be very different."
• "This is Wolverine. This is not Popeye. He's kind of dark. But, you know, this is a change of pace. Chris McQuarrie, who wrote The Usual Suspects, has written the script, so that'll give you a good clue. Aronofsky's going to make it fantastic. There's going to be some meat on the bones. There will be something to think about as you leave the theater, for sure."
• "I did a film with Darren in the past, and his vision with this movie, he's just gonna knock it out of the park with this one."
• "We need to find another director and once we've found that, we'll be able to know. It's too early to call on Japan, I'm not sure where they're at, so now we're finding another director, but Fox is very anxious to make the movie and we're moving ahead full steam to find another director."
• "This one didn't work out but hopefully there'll be another one."
• "There were a number of directors who wanted to do this because we have the best script yet, but his take was the strongest. He’s phenomenal, he's going to really knock this one out of the park."
• "Darren wanted to call it The Wolverine and I want to keep that, because to me this is going to feel like The Wolverine This is the one that in 20 years time I want to say, 'Check this out.' "
• "I loved doing that cameo. It was the easiest line learning I’ve had."
• "There's such great temptation to make an R-rated 'Wolverine'. I've always felt that. I know a lot of fans would like that. I totally get it. If there was ever a superhero that was going to be R-rated, it's Wolverine. However, in the last ten years, I've also met many, many 12, 13, dare I say 10, 14, 15 year-olds who, for them, Wolverine is not just cool, you see it in their eyes. He's everything to them. So my thing is -- which James Mangold and I talked about -- is let's not put it off the table. There's even a talk of us doing two versions, as in finding a way for us to do both as you shoot it, which could be really cool. But you need to have a really good reason to exclude those fans."
• ""I still love the character. I had no choice at the time - I was going to take anything that came along - but I happen to have walked into probably the most interesting and complex of the superhero characters."
• "It speaks to the incredible craftsmanship [here] that we can make so much of Japan - feudal Japan, urban Japan, sets - all here on our soundstages in Australia."
• "For various reasons with the first movie I don't think we got to the bottom of the character and I think that's why, in this one, we're calling it 'The' Wolverine. It should feel like a standalone movie."
• "It’s a wonderful idea, which is why Darren [Aronofsky] was interested in doing it. He’d been looking for a movie for a long time and he said that this was the best script he’d read. It didn’t work out in the end for many, complicated reasons but it was kind of a reassurance to me that I knew we were on the right path."
• "You want to get me into trouble, don’t you? [laughs] Okay, the movie takes place after X-Men: The Last Stand. My character is at his lowest. He is supposed to be able to heal himself, but he may encounter someone who has worked out a way to really hurt him. And there is a cameo from one of the past X-Men in it."
• "There’s an element of time travel [in X-Men: Days of Future Past] and, naturally, it will be action-packed."
• "You wouldn’t have enough room on the page after you’ve listed them all. Every other actor who’s ever put on a superhero uniform will be in it."
• "I still don't think we've seen the definitive Wolverine. And the longer I play the character, the more the desire to get him right grows. The more I speak to fans and explore his world, the more it means to me. Look, there's no question that it's a great role."
• "I didn't fully understand that when I went in, you know? The pressure now is way more. I feel I understand why there's the passion. I understand the character and the legacy and I don't feel, up until this movie, that we've completely lived up to that. So that's what I intend to do."
• "I first heard about it around October or November [2012]. I was literally finishing The Wolverine and dreaming about lasagna, and about three weeks before the end, they told me. There was no way I was not going to be part of that."
• "I'm thrilled the studio called it The Wolverine instead of Wolverine 2, because we're trying to set it up as a standalone picture. Tonally, it's different from the other X-Men movies. It's got massive action sequences, as people would expect, and it'll be great fun. But it is a character-driven movie. It's about a guy completely out of his element, in this world that's foreign to him, and how he copes with that. I feel like we have the opportunity to deliver that badass, kick-ass Wolverine I know everybody wants to see."
• "Viper is a badass, for someone who plays Wolverine, who is pretty badass. ... She's not your girl next door. You're going to end up kind of loving every minute she has on screen."
• "It is insane. It was insane to shoot it. It was, again, one of those brilliant ideas. One of the most emblematic things about Japan is the bullet train. I can't go on the bullet train without any incident. It was hairy, shooting that stuff. To re-create what that is like, the kind of winds at 300 miles per hour, let me just say, looking back at some of the footage, I thought, 'It's time for a facelift.' "
• "There's no doubt that the most important relationship in his life is — we've seen through the movies — is his relationship with Jean Grey. Yes, we saw her die at the end of [X-Men: The Last Stand], but in this movie, she has a presence, which I think is vital to the movie, particularly for him confronting the most difficult thing within himself."
• "I must admit I was starting to see a life free of steamed chicken breasts. They told me the idea and, at the time, it was Matthew Vaughn [directing]. Instantly, I knew it was a winner. It just felt like everything was coming full circle. However, I must admit my stomach and my mind were like, ‘Oh no.’ "
• "The script’s really really fantastic. I owe, in a way, everything to Bryan. The first film I did in America was X-Men. Wolverine is a character I’ve loved playing and I can’t believe it’s going to be my seventh time playing it. It just blows me away. It not only feels like the right kind of project, it actually is so exciting that we’ll all be back together again. I don’t want to give away too much but I’m really excited not only to reunite with all those great actors but also to work with some of the other ones."
• "Wolverine's back, and I couldn't be happier. I never in a million years would've thought I'd still be playing this character 12 years later. It kind of really is shocking to me, but at the same time, it's such an instant gratitude, because I love this character."
• "Wolverine's sort of interested in the offer of mortality, because if your life is not great and there is a lot of regret and pain, would it be great to live on and on? Yes, The Wolverine is a character piece, and I would say it may be a little darker in tone than the others, and it certainly feels a little different, but it's just as much fun. The action is probably in this is more inventive than we've ever had before."
• "I don't want to give away too much. She is there in the way that loved ones are always there ... in a very real way, she's there. He loses the love of his life, and we've seen that impact. He's one of those people where whenever he gets close to someone, bad things tend to happen. So in a way, not only for himself but for the world, he decides to just completely go off the reservation and sort of deny who he is and be like a recluse."
• "Three hours a day in the gym. I had a mentor, Dwayne Johnson, the Rock. We're mates, and I said, 'Mate, I need to know what you do." And he said, "Tell me you've got six months? ... You need six months to do this." He told me the diet -- 6,000 calories -- and that you have to train like no one else. This is what I learned: When I started, I used to think, "You want to be bigger? You want to be in better shape? Train harder, train harder, train harder!" It's not that, it's the food. Seventy percent of the way you look is your diet, 30% is your training. So if there's anything you've got to concentrate on, it's the food."
• "I thought, I wonder if they'll want me to cameo again? The I read an 8-page script. I was like, 'Okay, this is a slam-dunk idea. This, actually, is phenomenal. I think this will be, for X-Men, like The Avengers.' And I think it is..."
• "I was a little frustrated because I was nearing the end of a 12-to-18 month physical odyssey and getting ready to have Christmas off - and lasagnes. And I'm, unfortunately, not as young as I was, so I have to start earlier and go for longer. So I was like, Okay, we gotta keep going.' But I'm really excited about it, and I never thought in a million years I would play one character in seven movies."
• "Well, first of all, you always look at the pedigree of anything and the character itself in the comic book series is incredibly popular, so I could never take sole credit for any of that. I’m really pleased the fans have similarly embraced me in the part because I love playing the part. I never thought my run would last this long. To be a guy who can’t age, obviously there is a shelf life for playing this role, so I love it. I’ve always found it fascinating and slightly, I’ll admit, frustrating that I feel we’ve never really delivered what I would say is the core of the character. And I think in this story, you get to see the ultimate Wolverine. You get to see who he really is. You definitely see him at his most vulnerable, both physically and emotionally. As we were saying before, we had the preparation time so we were really in great shape, and I may be going off the question a little bit, I’m sorry, I feel really blessed in a way to have had the opportunity. I know a lot of the Wolverine fans. I’ve met many of them. They’ve told me exactly what they think of the movie, every scene, whatever. Lucky for me so far, there hasn’t been major disappointment because I’m pretty sure I’d get spat on in the street. That’s the level of passion involved. So I’m happy."
• "Yeah, I would say the film’s got a generally darker overtone to it. Also, as I said, you see him at a much lower eb. Jim and I were very adamant that any one-liners overcome the expense of what is really going for him in a realistic sense, usually that’s what happens a lot. The ones who are more deeply, internally in pain, can on the surface be more sardonic, can quip and make one-liners. The trick is really getting that line right, where all of a sudden it doesn’t become just hammy. So we constantly ad lib. I find myself ad-libbing a lot and probably 90% of them end up on the cutting room floor. I remember X-Men 1 most of the funny lines were ad-libbed. Sometimes they work."
• "That’s a great question because no one is simplistically just saying he becomes a martial artist or he becomes a samurai. What happens is Wolverine is a warrior by nature. His weapons, his strength is not pretty. It’s not formed so much, it’s more instinctive, a little more brutal. I think I’ve told you guys before I used to watch a lot of Mike Tyson videos, that’s what I’ve tried to model Wolverine on. What happens in this story, which follows on from the comic book arc, is actually he realizes that doesn’t always work for him and sometimes a more efficient, more disciplined approach of a samurai is more effective. He learns his lesson in a painful way and he adapts. That’s one good thing about Wolverine, he adapts. I’m not going to say he’s going to finish a triple black belt, but you do see him adjust, so I’ve been learning a lot for this, which is great."
• "I don’t know if all you guys know the original comic book series. It’s not just one. There are reasons we’ve had to change it, which I don’t want to give away. There’s definitely a lot of similarities. More similarities than differences. But for the purpose of story in the film and not a more rambling arc that goes on, it has been changed. The fans will definitely be excited by it. They will definitely see more similarities than not. In terms of refining the script, I think one of the keys to me in signing on to this movie was that we had a very strong idea and we had a strong approach to the story. That we really went from something new and different, and the moment the studio agreed to call it The Wolverine, I was just thrilled, rather than saying Wolverine 2. This is a standalone movie. This is set in a different time. It’s fairly after X-Men Origins, we’re in a different location with Jim Mangold, who’s a terrific director, we have a visual style that is different from all the other X-Men movies. I think it’s going to feel very fresh. What Chris McQuarrie did with it, which I don’t know if many of you know, was also involved with X-Men 1, not credited in the end, he had very strong ideas and a lot of that is there. Things were refined, but that’s because of time. It’s so hard. I want to give you more details. I’m sure you’d let me give you more details, but I see five people hovering, pretending it’s lunch, but it’s not really. [Laughs]."
• "You know, obviously we have people from—one of the great things about this movie is that a lot of people from Marvel are here and it seems a lot more inclusive than it has been in the past. I don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes, but I think it’s fantastic. I actually just asked the other day, I said, ‘I don’t know what the legal situation is, but why don’t these companies come together? Why isn’t it possible?’ Because personally, I would love to mix it up with Robert Downey Jr. and Iron Man and kick his ass. It’d be great. (laughs) There you go. There’s your quote. (Laughs)"
• "I loved The Avengers. I love what they do with it. Kevin Feige, by the way, I can tell you is one of the true gentlemen of this business. And I say that from when he was on X-Men 1, and I don’t even know what his role was, officially, associate producer maybe? But, when I first auditioned for Bryan, Dougray [Scott] was playing the role. Bryan… I think I was sent there by the studio. I don’t think he even knew I was coming, and it was one of those auditions you walk out going, ‘Well, I know this isn’t happening.’ Instead of just putting me on a plane, I remember him taking me out, him and Tom DeSanto took me out for a restaurant because I had to stay overnight. It was too late. They took me out for dinner. I remember thinking, I go, ‘Well, I know I’m not in this movie, so you guys are true gentlemen.’ They were really nice. I know how busy they were. They were already filming at the time, and I know I really wasn’t doing it. I know what was going on behind the scenes. And within a week, all of a sudden the Dougray thing started to unravel. So then, I went back and did a real audition."
• "But anyway, I just always remember Kevin and I have such a soft spot for him, and I’m in touch with him and I don’t know how I got onto that. But anyway, I’m basically really happy and proud of what he’s achieved. I think he’s making great movies. People love them. And consistency is incredible. So, who wouldn’t want to be involved with that?"
• "I wasn’t even sure after the first film if I would do another. I won’t say never, because I’m still loving it. But there would have to be a pretty compelling reason."
• "...we could have done better. Somehow the first Wolverine movie ended up looking like the fourth X-Men — just with different characters. I left unsure if we’d achieved our goal, which was to make sure people understood my character."
• "In the first Spider-Man -- Kevin Feige reminded me of this -- we really tried to get me to come on and do something, whether it was a gag or just to walk through the shot or something. The problem was, we couldn't find the suit. The suit was stuck in some thing. And so when they were in New York when I was there, we couldn't get it together. So, you know, I actually asked some high level people about it. Because the optimist in me goes, "Why not? Why can't we do it? You know, a split cast or whatever?" And someone reminded that the amount of money Fox paid compared to the amount of money Disney paid is very different [laughs]. So how you split that pie up? God knows. But in the comic books, what's great about it is they're just mashing together all the time -- and it's awesome. And people are like, "Yeah, well, let's get this one with that!" And, you know, I still think, one day, there may be an ability to do it."
• "I think some people are saying, “Ah, this just sounds like an excuse to get all these actors together and make an Avengers-style movie,” but the truth is that it’s a great script and Bryan is very ambitious to make the best movie of them all. He’s got the biggest cast, the biggest budget, and he started it all, so it’s his legacy. He’s a fan of time-travel movies, and the detail that’s gone into it is incredible. I’m quietly confident that it will be the biggest and the best of them all. When I sat there on that panel at Comic-Con, and looked down at all the actors, you think, “This might be one of the best ensembles ever assembled”… Apart from Movie 43. [Laughs]"
• "It’s fair to say we don’t get on that well. I get sent back to the past and he has no idea who I am, but you can imagine Wolverine has a bit of fun with that."
• "I don’t want to dive into another one until we have a compelling reason to do another one. I love the character, he’s kind of like a best friend to me, and I don’t ever want to take him or the fans for granted. ...I think we’ve got a great opportunity to make something really cool, but it has to be great. That’s what we’re all working toward... I was on the phone with Jim Mangold last night. There are some really cool ideas that I’m dying to tell you, but that would be giving away a secret that is not even fully formed yet."
• "I did love the Japanese saga — it was one of the first ones I read while making X-Men, actually. I remember thinking, 'This would make a great movie.' … It’s interesting because it’s very rare, even with the Japanese saga, to make a single story into a film. You end up using one as a basis, then you’ll draw really cool things from others."
• "To make a movie, obviously you need to do more than just one comic. There are some really cool ideas [about The Wolverine sequel] that I’m dying to tell you, but that would be giving away a secret that is not even formed yet, you know what I mean?"
• "Wolverine's less reluctant to help out and join in, but the stakes are definitely higher in this movie than ever before. He still occupies that same role as being devil's advocate with everybody. He just doesn't accept. He gets roped into having to do this mission that he's probably not the right person for but is the only one physically able to do it."
• "No there is not a script in place but Jim Mangold and I were literally on the phone last night talking about ideas but there is no script and no writer yet so it’s a way off."
• "There was already talk about doing a younger version, and I was certainly talking about Wolverine and trying to drum up interest in that. I thought the idea of another X-Men movie was done, so this was a surprise. And a welcome one."
• "Bryan has such an incredible brain. This is certainly the biggest movie Fox has made outside of Avatar, so there's pressure from all angles. But he's buzzing, and he's confident. He's gone deeper emotionally, and it's a great ensemble piece."
• "He's a warrior and he can't hide from that anymore, even if the consequences are going to be messy and painful. If there's an era for Wolverine, its the 70s. The hair, the mutton chops, you can smoke cigars everywhere...everything about Wolverine seems more at home in the 70s."
• "There's a line that Fassbender says that may make it. He says to Wolverine, 'You spend the next 50 years trying to bring me down?' Wolverine says, 'Pretty much.' Magneto says, 'How did that go for you...' "
• "I do a lot of my own stuff, except the stupid stuff like bashing your head against walls or crashing cars and all that jazz. But I did it the right way. I had a good amount of time to prepare, so I built slowly, I hit THE WOLVERINE and this movie without any injuries, which is was the first time - every time I've played Wolverine before I've carried some kind of injury because I've had to race to get ready. I did it slowly, I felt great, I felt great throughout. I felt tired, obviously, and it is harder, I'll admit that, but I felt really good. Physically for me, I feel better now probably than I did in the earlier films. So that's not an issue for me. Yet. (Laughs) It's all the meat pies! You guys saw the Wolverine diet..."
• "I'm fully aware that people will hear the idea and think, “Ah, they've just come up with a way to bring everybody together,” right? And the great thing is, I don't have to sell it because I know the storyline is phenomenal. Any of the cynics out there, it's going to exceed their expectations by a million miles. Because it's a very strong, emotional story, which I think has always been the strength of X-Men—following the humane and difficult side and tortured side of these superheroes, but it's also intellectually very, very engaging and the action is ridiculous. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but it’s the biggest Fox movie ever outside of AVATAR, so it's a massive movie."
• "I just know fans are going to flip out at this. With Bryan, there's nobody better at handling multi-character stories. He showed it in USUAL SUSPECTS right through. They're always smart, they're always engaging and I think it's fascinating to watch him grow as a director. He embraces the emotional side of the story. And there's a lot of comedy in this world. He was worried in the first one about setting a new tone for these movies, which had been seen as too broad prior, and there really hadn't been after the Batman movies, the original series. He wanted to create a very realistic, very human, very emotionally rich dynamic. And he's just gone to another level on this. It's a very epic, very big, big, big movie. You can see the evolution from X1 to X2. He's someone who loves that kind of complexity of story. He's a ridiculously smart guy. He understands and can hold so many characters. And it's gone to another level. Bryan's a fan of many things. I knew he was a Superman fan. He's a World War II freak, hence VALKYRIE. But he loves time travel movies. So for him, this is not just, "Oh we're going to travel through time." It's important to create the most incredible time travel movie of all time. Anyone who's even vaguely tempted to write a time travel movie... it's easy to pitch and very difficult in the details. Because every line, every action, everything—you have to set up the rules very carefully so the audience understands it—but you also have to pay it off in many ways. It's difficult as well as having 20 characters across that. So Bryan is in his element."
• "You do see battling and I'll tell you, you see battling in the future and in the past. And not just me battling them, but all the characters. It's exciting after doing two Wolverine movies in a row to see how the X-Men work together, so I'm trying to give you a little something without giving you much, but they need to work together in order to bring down the Sentinels. You've seen the past Sentinels. All I can tell you is that in the future, the Sentinels are formidable. They're formidable in the past, but in the future—it's a very dire situation for the X-Men."
• "Well, it very much follows on from THE WOLVERINE. You get the feeling that he's come to terms with who he is. I'm a warrior. I'm Wolverine and that's who I am. For better or worse, it's not gonna be pretty but here we go. And as you saw in the teaser he gets approached and it's all hands on deck. It doesn't matter which side you're on in terms of mutant politics, it's all hands on deck. It's about survival. So he's on board but he's very much in the center of it, in terms of the team. And then he's sent back to try and fix things. And as he says, "I'm the last person in the world who should be sent back on this mission. If you want someone to go back and take someone's head off, fantastic." But he's actually really got to go back and act as inspiration, as mentor, as guide. Because he can't do it all on his own, which is always his preferred method. To just do it himself. But he can't due to the nature of the story. So he has to not be a leader, but a facilitator for everyone to come together. Which is not his normal modus operandi. It's certainly not easy for him."
• "I'm gonna have to let that one go to another character in this one. I feel like if you can do a movie, say two or three words and one of them is the F-bomb, don't try and repeat that. Move on. I always feel weird about that because I didn't get paid for that [X-MEN FIRST CLASS cameo], but Fox very kindly made a charitable donation to my kid's school, so I thought it was very weird handing them a check. "Listen don't ask me how I got this…""
• "We do go out. Actually, when we're all out, it's sort of intimidating. Because we're very loud, quite often have parties where people end up singing and drinking a lot and so it can get a little intimidating, I think that's the way it seems. We don't get people coming up to us, you can tell people notice us but it is a very social cast. And let me tell you, that young cast... That's where I feel it physically! Next morning, Fassbender, Nick and James are, like, "Okay! Let's go!" And I'm (mimes looking rough). It's easy for me to be grumpy on those mornings. But a lot of the time I can't keep up with them."
• "I feel better within myself and I think the team does in terms of what we created with THE WOLVERINE. This might look bad in print, but I don't feel the weight of that like I did after the first WOLVERINE. After that one, I felt we still hadn't created that movie. And I've been so lucky to play it and I always wanted to have that feeling in 30 years when someone says, "What movie should I watch?" and I’d say, "Watch this one." "What's the Wolverine?" and I’d say, "That's Wolverine." And I won't tell you now, but if someone asks what X-Men movie should I watch, maybe this one [DAYS OF FUTURE PAST]... But that's what motivates me."
• "I don't think about that. How long. I know 100% it'll come to an end and it should. I've said before, I always think the great parts outlive the actors that play them and that's a stage tradition, that goes back hundreds of years and it should be that way. I came off the bench to play this part and when people do that, they're even more reluctant to give it up! But I love playing it and I really love playing THE WOLVERINE and I was very motivated to do what I thought was a more definitive version of that character and being in this is a dream. There's no way I'd miss out on this opportunity, right? So to go on from there, here's how I think. It has to be more interesting than the last Wolverine if I'm going to a Wolverine movie, it has to be more compelling. And the same with an ensemble piece, whatever it's called, it would have to be the same thing. I don't know when that will be. Who knows? I don't know what'll happen. Obviously The Wolverine's still in theaters and this still has a year to go, so in a way I'm not even thinking about it right now, but that's always been my touchstone.When I first heard about [DAYS OF FUTURE PAST], I said yes on the phone because this is a slam-dunk. And part of me was, 'Ah... I'm doing Wolverine, do I want to do it again?' But there was no way I was ever going to say no, without even seeing the script, with Bryan in a story with everyone involved. Who knows, this may be my last time playing it? And if it is, it couldn't be a better way to wrap it up."
• "There was a very intense first scene and I insisted on a closed set. I ran round the corner and all the female members of the crew were gathered there. I tried to cover myself and cut my inner thigh - it was just the inner thigh thankfully! The metal claws had to go - you can't have bits and pieces flying off!"
• "Bryan Singer had this mandate that noone could read comic books on the set because when he was creating the first X-Men he wanted to be very human and three dimensional and he was worried that the actors would come on set with an over the top performance and that their perception of comic books was two dimensional, even though X-Men as you know is not. But we were handing them around and I remember being handed this comic book, it was like contraband we were hiding them around, and I said to the producer Lauren Shuler Donner -- those who know the series by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller know that it involves all the X-Men -- so I said this would make a great X-Men movie. And actually as it progressed he idea of making it to ultimate movie for Wolverine grew in my mind and she agreed with me. This idea of taking him to a place that's completely foreign and making him completely unhinged, not knowing who anybody is is a great way [to go], because he's a natural outsider. I think the customs and the atmosphere, the history, the samurai code -- the honor and obeying -- is the opposite of Wolverine and is the perfect place to put that character."
• "Jim [Mangold] said to me in the first phone conversation we had, when I rang him about it and he read the script, tonally I'm thinking The Outlaw Josey Wales. I said I hadn't seen and he sent it me immediately. But that was the time.. immediately I knew we would create something different, and setting it in Japan obviously makes it different."
• "We wanted to make this stand alone. We didn't want it to feel like any other Wolverine movies or any other comic book movies. We wanted it to be in service of the character. We never worried about ratings we just thought 'lets bring this character to life.' And one of the things of the comic books, as some of you will know, is the thing [he's got] with women. It's sort of his Achilles Heel. In this movie we have a predominance of women. Having Famke Janssen back and she plays such a key role in this, it's fantastic. In such a short time we were able to explore their relationship more than ever. And I just want to point out that these two (Tao Okamoto playing Mariko, Rila Fukushima playing Yuriko), it's a very daunting film to be in your first film, but when your first film is as big as this there's a lot of pressure. I'm so proud of what both of these women achieved... I think both of them have done such an unbelievable job."
• "I would love to see him as part of The Avengers. Because there's a great dysfunction among that team, and I think Wolverine would fit right into that. He'd like that. There's no doubt he'd get in a fight with Hulk at some point. Those two bad, rage-filled characters are going to square off at some point. It would be quite fun. I don't know how much fun to shoot it would be because I'm sure I'd be on the worst end of it, but hey, he can heal."
• "Maybe I'll convince him [Aronofsky] to do a Wolverine movie at some point. We had a long discussion, Darren and I, as did Jim and I, about making The Wolverine R-rated. They were open to it, actually. It didn't scare them off, as long as we have a good reason for it. I was the one to call it off. In a way, I would love to do it -- if there was ever a character that would necessitate an R-rated version. But I'm the one who, every day of my life, meets 12, 13, 14-year-olds. I see in their eyes how I used to feel about Indiana Jones. So for me to say, 'You know what, this next movie, it's not for you' -- I would have to have a really good reason for it. So we made the movie without a rating in mind, and the first cut, let me tell you, we had trouble. It was definitely R-rated. So in the end, we just snuck on the side of it, but that's why we released the unrated cut on Blu-ray."
• "But there was one thing that he said to me that I can remember. He said to me, "I don't think you've just got to be a little bit bigger. I think you've got to be fifty pounds bigger... and muscle-only." He had a really cool idea about scars. He said, "I want to see him completely scarred. I know he heals but if you think about it, we have a scar, we have a scar for life. It doesn't really get better. It might reduce over your lifetime but it also stays there." "
• "I have been speaking to the guys, and I’m not at liberty to tell exactly what’s going on, which is largely framing my answer here. But there’s still a lot unknown about that, actually. There are some very exciting things about integrating the whole X-Men world, including the Wolverine movie. There’s some really cool things going on."
• "There’s so many forces at play there, man, beyond what anyone would want. The thing I’ve always loved about the comic-book world is how the fun thing was how a writer of a comic book could just pull all these characters together and what became a Friday-night discussion of “it would be cool to see Iron Man fight Wolverine” and bang, Monday morning they’re working on it, you know. But that’s an idealized world."
• "I'm not going to deny it. I've learned over the years to try and put my best poker face on. By the way, play poker with me if you want to win some money, because I'm terrible. But, I've always seen it as a really important relationship, and we started with that and I think it's a really important one. I think it would be really great to see it in the Wolverine movie, because we haven't really explored it in the standalone Wolverine movies. So it's not not not not not going to happen."
• "[speaking of a possible Avengers/X-Men crossover] Two years ago I’d have said you’d be a real optimist to think it’d ever happen, but weirdly now I just think it maybe could. I think there is the possibility that it will happen."
• "There was a period about six years ago when I could see my choices being narrowed by Wolverine, but now I feel like they've opened up from doing Les Mis or Prisoners or Pan. The options coming to me right now are more varied than they've ever been in my life. Hopefully, I'm not that actor in 10 years who's unemployed going, 'Why did I ever leave it?' and then begging to come back. They were all really supportive -- 17 years is a long time. And I'm sure that they've already started casting, you know? Someone may sign up for an 11-picture deal, as we speak."
• "Weirdly, I'm really excited about shooting it. I feel great enthusiasm, I suppose it's denial -- like the football player who announces their retirement before their last season -- and so I'm really looking forward to it. But, I know it's not over yet! I still got a lot of 4 o'clock mornings and a hell of a lot of egg white omelettes and steamed chicken to have, and all of that."
• "I feel very blessed that I loved playing this part, the last Wolverine and that last X-Men were maybe two of the best and I feel like, hopefully, we'll do it again with this last one."
• "Man, have I aged….I have three words for you: Old Man Logan. Take from that what you will."
• "I know they killed off Wolverine in the comic books recently, but in the movies, hey, he’s not dead yet."
• "This next time is going to be my last time putting on the claws. One. Last. Time, this has been the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”
• "I don't have a start date because, we're not going to have start dates until we have that script perfect. It matters too much to me, I care too much about the character, about the audience, and when you say it's going to be your last one... I just want to leave everything on the table, absolutely everything."
• "Start training six months out. I got the part literally as they were filming. Bryan Singer said, 'How long do you need to get into shape?' 'Three weeks?' If you look at the film carefully there's quite a transformation."
• "We have a script. A full script. To tell you, two days ago I got that the full finished—well, it’s not finished, but we’re getting super close—as you can see by the rate of my facial hair. That might give you a good clue that perhaps…yeah, it’s sooner rather than later."
• "I don’t have a firm date yet. My thing and I’ve told you and I’ve told everyone, it’s my last one, for me I want it to be perfect, so the moment I know it’s perfect, bang, we’ll go.I don’t have a firm date yet. My thing and I’ve told you and I’ve told everyone, it’s my last one, for me I want it to be perfect, so the moment I know it’s perfect, bang, we’ll go."
• "Love it. It’s just brilliant. I mean, I love Ryan, he’s a good mate of mine. He’s so fantastic."
• "I’ve never thought about it till now, but doing something with Ryan – he’s awesome – that’s always attractive to me. But I think you’ve probably got several other people lined up to play Wolverine."
• "We finished shooting. I just saw James Mangold today, he's editing away and finishing that. I'm very, very excited about it. There's going to be some stuff coming out in the next week or so, that's all I'll say. I'm really trying - I'm not good, I'm the kind of person who tells everybody everything. Basically, it's going to be very different. Very different in tone and hopefully, very different from anything that we've done."
• "It's essential you see this as the story of a man who is struggling with mortality and legacy, and whether the world has been better off with him or without him."
• "I’m hesitating, because I could totally see how that’s [the Wolverine/Deadpool movie] the perfect fit. But the timing may be wrong."
• "When you see the full movie, you'll understand. Not only is it different in terms of timeline and tone, it's a slightly different universe. It's actually a different paradigm and that will become clear."
• "I said this was my last one and they said make the movie you want to make. And so Jim and I had this blank canvas and we wanted to make something really different. Definitely tonally different, I kept thinking The Wrestler, Unforgiven. It's a stand alone movie in many ways. It's not really beholden to time lines and story lines in the other movies. Obviously Patrick Stewart was in there so we have some crossover but it feels very different and very fresh."
• "Following the timelines becomes a chess game that you try to serve, which actually doesn't help to tell a story and it's sort of been a bit all over the place. I'm not critical of it – X-Men was the first movie really in comic book, no one thought there'd be another and there were different directors different off shoots."
• "I just yelled, ‘SHUT THE [frick] UP!’ At the end of 40 minutes of this I went up to Maria, Dafne’s mum, and I said, ‘Maria, I’ve got an 11-year-old and I’m just really sorry.’ Maria said, ‘Aw, don’t worry, she just called you a c*nt. In Spanish.’"
• "I was kind of struggling, to be honest. It was the first movie I had ever done in America. I was pretty tight. I was nervous. I was average, to be honest, at best. No one was saying anything and I sort of thought I was getting away with it, but I wasn't."
• "He told me that he believed in me, that from the moment he'd seen my tape he had a gut feeling I was the guy, but watching my dailies was like watching someone put a lampshade over a light."
• "There is not a frame of this film where I can't say I didn't put everything into it. I couldn't have made this film if I didn't make the decision within myself that this was the last one. I just didn't compromise on anything. I was a pain to a lot of people, because I don't get another shot at this. This is a character I love. I owe my career to this character."
• "[on if this is truly the last run on the character] When I had the script, I was like, ‘Yes... And when I was shooting the movie, yes. As I sit here today, yes. God knows how I’ll feel in three years, But right now, absolutely. Let’s be clear — I’m not retiring."
• "There’s been a gnawing turmoil that I hadn’t really nailed it, fully — either story or performance or whatever... Every film I’ve ever done, I’ve had that gnawing doubt. But I have it way less in this one."
• "I’d had a few wines, I said, ‘I think I’ve only got one more film, if I do it.’ And I just blurted out something. I went home and went to sleep, and I woke up at 4 in the morning, picked up my phone, and recorded a voice memo."
• "I wanted to portray the fallen hero, trying to escape his past, find some peace and deal with disappointment and regret."
• "The character will go on, someone else will play it, for sure. It'll be fine...unless Daniel Day-Lewis plays him and wins the Oscar — then I might have a little problem."
• "That's probably bad timing because I love Ryan Reynolds and I love Deadpool, but I knew I was out and I couldn't have made this movie if I was questioning if I was out. I was a pain in the ass for a lot of people with this movie because it mattered so much to me. Even when we started writing this, and even when I asked James Mangold to come on board, I said 'Dude, I don't know if I'm gonna make it.' Unless it's exactly what I want, I prefer to not do it. I couldn't live with it. So this is it."
• "If that was on the table when I made my decision, it certainly would have made me pause. That’s for sure. Because I always love the idea of him within that dynamic, with the Hulk obviously, with Iron Man but there’s a lot of smarter people with MBAs who can’t figure that out [laughter]. You never know. At the moment, honestly, if I really did have them there, I probably wouldn’t have said this is the last. It just feels like this is the right time."
• "No, and Ryan is currently sleeping outside my house. Look, if that movie had appeared 10 years ago, probably a different story, but I knew two and a half years ago that this was the last one. The first call I made was to Jim. I said, ‘Jim, I got one more shot at this,’ and as soon as Jim came up with the idea and we worked on it, I was never more excited. But, it feels like the right time. Deadpool, go for it man, do your thing. You don’t need me."
• "I was very skeptical of having X-24 being played by me. I understood what it represented and thematically the idea of battling himself, which of course is right at the core of this character that we never fully got to, so I kind of loved the externalization of that. But I also know that myself as an actor and fans of Wolverine come up to me in the street every day and go, ‘We wanna see that full berserker animalistic crazy off-the-wall Wolverine,’ right? That we don’t feel we’ve fully seen it, so I was like, ‘Jim if we introduced halfway or near the end of the movie that full berserker animalistic crazy Wolverine and he’s somehow fighting our hero, audiences won’t know what to feel.’ And I remember him saying, ‘Trust me, trust me, trust me.’ And I was a bit of a pain in the ass on that one, I was like, ‘I’m just not sure. Let’s keep exploring it and exploring it.’"
• "When I saw the movie it’s just clear, for some reason I think because he skewers Patrick Stewart in that moment the audience just sort of hates him. We did some subtle things, I changed the bridge of my nose, I wore contacts — I just wanted him to look a little different from myself. And I think by that point we’d created already the Wolverine that people wanted to see. So anyway, that was one of my examples of being wrong."
• "There was a story point where they go to Vegas, you know how they go to the Oklahoma casino? They go there and at this point Sabretooth is running like a major casino and really, really wealthy, and really kind of runs a town, and sort of respectable in a way but is still himself. That idea was thrown around, I forgot about that."
• "There were a couple of things I couldn’t work out how to do. Fans always say, ‘When are we gonna see you in the blue and yellow spandex? We’ve gotta see that shot!’ We tried a little bit in The Wolverine, it didn’t happen—on that plane at the end he opens up a box and there’s the suit, I think that ended up getting cut. So the suit was one thing but we just couldn’t work out how to do it, so if anyone can work that out you go for it. The other idea that I always loved was the idea in the comics that every year on Logan’s birthday, his brother comes and beats the crap out of him. I just thought that was such a cool very fun idea and very in keeping to those characters. His birthday present was just a beating and that’s the only time he sees him (laughs). I kept saying, ‘Jim can we put that in?’ and he goes ‘Eh this is not that movie.’ But anyway."

Trivia

• Hugh Jackman was co-stars with Dakota Goyo in Real Steel. Goyo portrayed young Thor in Thor.
• Hugh Jackman holds the record for having played the same superhero character for the longest time having played Wolverine for 17 years since 2000.
• Jackman is one of two actors (along with Samuel L. Jackson) to appear in seven Marvel films as one character. Wolverine and Nick Fury.
• Jackman was offered the role of Tony Stark in Iron Man but turned it down.