Jackman shed a tear for end of Wolverine
Hugh Jackman’s rip-roaring final turn in the “Wolverine” franchise premiered at the Berlin film festival last week, as he admitted he shed a few tears saying goodbye to the juggernaut role.
“Logan” sees the blade-fingered superhero reunited with his ailing father figure Professor X (British actor Patrick Stewart) and introduced to Laura, his mutant daughter he was unaware had been created in a Mexican laboratory.
Though still small, Laura (newcomer Dafne Keen) inherited her father’s steely claws and awesome strength.
She joins him in battle against the agents of an American company that wants her back after engineering her along with a band of superhuman child soldiers.
Jackman said the family story packed a heavy emotional punch for him and, he hoped, the audience.
“When I saw the movie I was very nervous, knowing what was at stake for me and it exceeded my expectations. I looked at that character – there were some moments I cried, in weird places like carrying the child (Laura) back up the stairs,” he said.
“I can’t say I’ll miss him because it’s difficult to describe, it’s not going anywhere for me. It will always live here. The fans will remind me every single day of my life whether we got it right or wrong.”
The film’s opening chapter takes place along a heavily militarized US border with Mexico, in the near future.
Logan – or Wolverine – and Professor X are living in hiding when Laura surfaces, having escaped her creator-captors with the help of a nurse from the clinic.
The woman pleads with Logan to shepherd Laura to “Eden,” a safe haven in North Dakota, near the Canadian border.
The three generations of the family end up on a fateful odyssey through an America populated by ruthless corporations and the decent citizens who try to stand up to them.
Political echoes
Stewart said the resonance of the picture’s themes had grown stronger during production.
“We did not set out to make a political movie and yet there are references and echoes in this movie that could not have been anticipated but exist today,” he said. “That is serendipity.”
Jackman also saw the story as prescient. “We were talking when we got down to set – a year before any of those debates happened – the whole wall and the scenes at the border were in our script and it was kind of amazing,” he said.
Writer-director James Mangold said that the ultra-violent movie, rated adults only, was intended to delve into mature topics even though many of its cast are kids.
“We are selling this movie to grown-ups, and that gave us the freedom to make a movie for grown-ups,” he said.
“The ideas, the scene length doesn’t have to be tailored to the attention span of a nineyear-old. We don’t need to add sidekicks so we can sell an action figure. The themes and ideas of taking care of an aging parent or the nature of death and life and the meaning of it can be somehow explored with credibility and sophistication.”
One last time
Jack man–an Academy Award nominated, Golden Globe and Tony Award-winning performer – first brought his electrifying energy to the mutant known as Wolverine in 2000 in the film that launched the modernday comic-book blockbuster, director Bryan Singer’s original X-Men.
Since then, the acclaimed Australian has slipped into the skin of the world’s most famous mutant a record 10 times on the big screen. But this time, with “Logan,” Jackman had the chance to craft something truly special laying to rest his longtime screen alter ego.
“Logan” is set at the backdrop of 2029 where mutants are gone—or very nearly so.An isolated, despondent Logan is drinking his days away in a hideout on a remote stretch of the Mexican border, picking up petty cash as a driver for hire.
His companions in exile are the outcast Caliban and an ailing Professor X, whose singular mind is plagued by worsening seizures. But Logan’s attempts to hide from the world and his legacy abruptly end when a mysterious woman appears with an urgent request—that Logan shepherd an extraordinary young girl to safety.
Soon, the claws come out as Logan must face off against dark forces and a villain from his own past on a live-or-die mission, one that will set the time-worn warrior on a path toward fulfilling his destiny.
From the outset, Jackson’s always had a gift for locating Logan’s humanity beneath his gruff, deeply scarred exterior. But with this nuanced, deeply moving performance, he brings the character full circle—the cigar-chomping, hardcharging loner is now a steadfastly loyal comradein-arms willing to sacrifice everything for what he believes.
“We wanted something that would feel very different, very fresh and ultimately something very human,” Jackson said, “because it seems to me that the strength of Wolverine is more his humanity than his superpower. In exploring this character for the last time, I wanted to get to the heart of who that human was, more than what his claws can do.”
“There was a moment that I came to terms with the fact that this was my last one,” Jackman says. “I love this character, and he’s been amazing to me. I’d be lying if I said that I would have been okay if I didn’t feel everything was left on the table. Every day, every scene was a kind of battle to get the best out of that character, to get the best out of me.
“There was an element of life and death about it—that’s how it felt.”