"No One Else Could Fill These Claws!!!"

Australian Hugh Jackman became an international Hollywood star as Wolverine in the X-Men movies. The success of the films parlayed roles for him in others like Van Helsing, The Prestige, Australia, Real Steel, and Les Misérables. Now the 44 year-old returns as the superhero once again in The Wolverine.

The film is the second spinoff solo outing for the superhero, who was originally a bit character in The Incredible Hulk before he became part of a revitalized X-Men in comic books in the mid-1970’s. It’s not to be confused with X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

This time out, Wolverine travels to Japan to battle samurai as well as a few personal demons. Jackman talks about how his relationship with the character has changed over the years.

“Yeah, well, in 1953, I got the part and it sometimes feels like that,” Hugh says, “But it was in the past century in 1999 and it’s weird, I actually am enjoying playing him more than ever and I was kind of reflecting on that and someone said, ‘Why would that be?’ and I don’t know, Wolverine is somewhere between the ages of 150 and 300 and some of the 4:00 mornings, I felt about 300 years older, but I think generally, just being a little bit older, I think the script, particularly as you see by the title, we’re particularly focusing on this character, we’re focusing on his journey to more intimate and more interior story.”

“We’re not wall-to-wall mutants and people flying around and lasers coming out of eyes, etc.,” he adds, “This is a real true character story having someone like Jim on board to not only give the action, just unbelievable kind of creativity and I think make it original, but also make it a true drama and see the sort of human side and the vulnerabilities of Wolverine. All these things have made it, in a way, more challenging and more satisfying and more fun to play and I’m really

"No One Else Could Fill These Claws!!!"

thrilled that from the writers to the studio that everyone got on board that idea. And that the movie we wanted to make, I think we made.”

Hugh was asked about how he approaches film and his other venue of performance, theater, differently.

“Yeah, there’s a difference,” Jackman says, “This is my sixth time playing this part. I actually approached this role differently each time. You can’t help it as an actor. You change as a person. You change in your interpretation of a role. There is something however essentially the same, which is as an actor, you’re looking for the truth in the character, you’re looking to get inside the character, to understand them, even if they have claws and really weird hair and ridiculous mutton chops.”

“It’s sort of your job is to tell the story from as truthful a place as possible and that’s no different whether you’re on stage or on screen,” he continues, “You have the advantage of screen is particularly when you have a director like Jim [Mangold], who is interested in the gray areas, he’s interested in what happens between the lines. You have an opportunity for the camera to delve into you, to go inside. In a theatre, obviously, you have to take care of the people who are a hundred yards away. So there’s a different technique in a way, not dissimilar to how a runner who runs a 100 meter race runs differently from one running an 800 meter race, but it’s still running.”

The Wolverine outing is based on the original comic of the same name, which was a limited series in 1982. Jackman recalls how he had long wanted to do a film based on it when he first learned of the story.

“If I can remember this, Bryan Singer had this mandate that no one could read comic books on the set,” he says, “Because when he was creating the first X-Men, he wanted it to

"No One Else Could Fill These Claws!!!"

be very human and three-dimensional and he was worried that people or actors would come on set with then-over-the-top performance and 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 like it was contraband. We were hiding them from Bryan. And I said to the producer Lauren Shuler Donner, ‘This is a great movie.’”

“Those people who know the series, the Chris Claremont/Frank Miller series know that it involves all the X-Men, so I said this would be a great X-Men movie,” Hugh adds, “And actually, as it progressed, the idea of making it as the ultimate movie for Wolverine grew in my mind, and Jim agreed with me that this great fish-out-of-water story. This idea of taking you to a place that’s completely foreign and making him completely sort of unhinged. Not knowing who anybody is is a great way, because he’s a natural outsider. And I think their customs and the atmosphere and the history and all the samurai codes of honor and obeying and all that stuff is the opposite of Wolverine. It’s just the perfect place to put that character.”

Hugh talks about working with director James Mangold, whose films include Cop Land, Girl, Interrupted, Walk The Line, 3:10 To Yuma, and Knight And Day, who had previously worked with the actor in the romantic comedy fantasy Kate & Leopold.

“Jim said to me in the very first phone conversation we had when I rang him about it and he read the script, he said, ‘Tonally, I’m thinking The Outlaw Josey Wales,” Jackman says, “I said, ‘I haven’t seen it yet.’ He sent it to me immediately and I watched it. But that was the tone of it, and immediately, I knew that we were going to create something different and setting in Japan obviously makes it different.”

“We wanted to make this a standalone,”

"No One Else Could Fill These Claws!!!"

he adds, “We didn’t want it to feel like any other Wolverine movies or any other comic book movies. We wanted this to be in service of the character. We never worried about ratings. We just thought, ‘Let’s bring this character to life,’ and one of the things in the comic books is the thing with women and Wolverine. It sort of his Achilles’ heel in a way. And in this movie, we have a predominance of women and having Famke back and she plays such a key role in this and it was fantastic. And in a way, in such a short time, I think we got to explore their relationship more than ever.”

Jackman talks about working with Japanese newcomers Tao Okamoto and Rila Fukushima, who respectively play the daughter of yakuza crime boss Shingen Yamada’s daughter and one of his assassins.

“It’s a very daunting thing to be in your first film,” Hugh says, When your first film is as big as this, there’s a lot of pressure. I am so proud of what both of these women achieved. Also, I want to take my hat off to Jim, because there are very few directors with the confidence in themselves as directors or in what they’re trying to produce that would hire in such pivotal roles to newcomers.”

“And I think it really helps the audience come to this world like Wolverine does in a fresh way and not know what’s going on,” he continues, “And I think both of them have done unbelievable job, and so, I’m very proud of them.”

Hugh also spoke very glowingly of veteran Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada, who plays the role of Shingen Yamada.

“When we were in Sydney shooting, actually the Chinese were being turned into sort of Japanese site,” he says, “And as we were finishing the set one day, I saw the lineup of all the extras and they were lining up and I thought, normally, extras just

"No One Else Could Fill These Claws!!!"

bolt and leave. And I thought maybe they were collecting mobile phones, maybe they’re handing over some prop, and when I crane my head around, around the side so they are out of sight of anybody was Hiro, who’s done about 60 films in Japan, and is an icon there, stood on the side and one by one shook the hands and bowed and thanked every extra on the film. So when people say to me, ‘You’re known as a nice guy in Hollywood.’ I go, ‘I am nothing.’ The humility, the respect, and the generosity was there with Hiro, it was there with the girls, and made a huge difference.”

Hugh talks about a scene involving Wolverine zipping around mountains in an Audi sportscar.

“I was in my trailer at the time,” he says, “We did zip around that car around the streets of Sydney, and what I love about Jim was, and it’s always the same. We did the first one and we’re zipping around the corner.”

“I’m like, ‘Whoa, OK! That was fast,’” Jackman adds, “And Jim was like, ‘Faster! This is pathetic. You’re Wolverine.’ And every take was like, ‘Faster! Faster!’ And I’m like, ‘Alright.’ The shot looks faster than me in the car, but the Audi is a great car.”

Jackman was asked to compare that to the first car he ever owned.

“My very first car, for all I know, cost $800,” Hugh says, “I bought it, I spent $400, my mate Warwick spent $400, I was at drama school, and as far as I know, it’s still on the side of the freeway in Perth because that was the 8th time it broke down. And for an $800 car, we were finally like, ‘Stuff it,’ and we just left it and hitchhiked our way. So I have no idea, I broke every rule known to man.”

Hugh talks about the other incredible action sequences he did in The Wolverine.

“It was a humbling to watch,

"No One Else Could Fill These Claws!!!"

because I loved it,” Jackman says, “There was this one scene where literally, there is those industrial leaf-blowers. There’s five guys just blowing you. And as I looked back in one of the scenes, you can literally see the folds of my skin just kind of flapping around. That was a point where you think, ‘I feel young, but I don’t look so young.’ But it was three weeks and for me, I’ve done a lot of action things and certainly one of the hairiest, a few cuts, a few bruises, a couple of tweaked necks. I got a couple of early marks because people were worried that I was going to break my neck.”

“But the experience was very exciting because I thought it was emblematic of what Jim was trying to do, creative, fun, really great action,” he adds, “It was going to give the audience what they wanted, but not sort of overblown, over-the-top action sequence where you just don’t care anymore. I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to spend two hours in a theater, I can only look at pretty amazing visuals for so long if I don’t care about what’s going on.”

Jackman also revealed what he did during his spare time during the film shoot in Japan.

“I’ve been to Japan maybe 10 or 11 times, so to film there was a great thrill,” he says, “I took the opportunity to take my family because we were there for quite a long time and I know that’s something that they’ll never forget. And when we went to Tomonaura, this village in the south, it is so beautiful there. If you wanted a Western breakfast, they said, ‘You need three days notice.’ So we were really out of Tokyo. For me, I don’t know if you know, but I’m a big foodie. I love Japanese. I’m very almost ashamed to say gluttonously went to Juro three times while we were

"No One Else Could Fill These Claws!!!"

there. I went once, then I had to take my wife back again, and we went, the crew, we swam, we did loads of beautiful things. I climbed Mt. Fuji with my son, I went in some onsens (hot springs). I went into the onsen, which is separated male and female, and they hand you a towel, like a small washcloth. And when you go in the onsens, there are eight different types of tubs, so different heats, different temperatures, one of them is cold, it’s always cold.”

“So I’m getting so hot and of course, I’m using the towel they gave me to dip into the cold water and putting it on my head, and I was getting very strange looks from everybody,” Hugh adds, “This the base of Mt. Fuji. We were not even in Tokyo. I was the only white person there and they were looking at me and I thought, ‘Maybe this is not cool. Maybe I’m not meant to be there. I don’t know. I was feeling uncomfortable.’ And finally, this guy in a towel, he’s looking me and he’s grossed out. And then, finally, I realized the towel was meant to be covering my privates and I had spent about an hour just sort of waltzing around the place with this thing on my head and a beer in the other hand.”

The Wolverine is a considerably darker film from past X-Men films. Hugh explained why he feels this particular film takes such a dark turn.

“I think it’s in the DNA of the comic book for X-Men,” he says, “And I’m mentioning that because when it came about in the sixties, if you think of Wolverine, it was one of the first sort of antiheroes. And all of the powers of all those characters stem from an emotional place and let’s just look at Wolverine. Really, he has claws, he has an adamantium skull, and he can heal himself, but his

"No One Else Could Fill These Claws!!!"

really defining characteristic is that berserker rage, that idea of all the people, he may not on paper have the greatest powers, but he’s the last person you want to piss off.”

“He’s the person you want on your side, and that’s what makes him formidable,” Jackman adds, “And that’s why I think teenagers particularly relate to it because there is confusion, there is emotion, there is unresolved anger, and all these characters from Jean to all of them, Storm, they somehow use that dysfunction, that pain, the indecision, all those things that are within to calm their strength and become their defining quality. But with Wolverine, as you see in this movie, it’s as much a burden as it is a superpower or a great thing, and that is what has made X-Men interesting and that’s why audiences have loved it and the comic book series and why it’s lasted as a movie thing. And so, you can call it ‘darkness’, but I really just think that it is complexity.”