CELEBRITIES
Veteran Australian actor Hugh Jackman has no regrets as he says farewell to a career-defining role as Wolverine.
It was a make-or-break moment in his career, and he knew it. The year was 1999, and Hugh Jackman had been playing the lead role of Curly in a revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! in London.
Then the moment came. Director Bryan Singer was looking for an unknown actor to play the Marvel Comics hero Wolverine in
X-Men (2000), and Jackman’s agent had wangled him an audition.
“Every man and his dog wanted this role,” Jackman said during a telephone interview. “I remember it was a Wednesday, in-between the matinee and evening performance. I bolted off the stage, ripped off the leather chaps from Curly and ran off to the auditions.
“I was in a grumpy mood at the time,” he recalled, “and I couldn’t wait around because I had to get back to the theatre. I was really nervous that I wouldn’t make it back for the evening show.”
His callback the next day came with a note. “It read, ‘You might want to lose the southern cowboy accent and the perm,’” Jackman said, laughing. “It’s true. I auditioned for WolverineW with a perm and a baseballb cap on.”
Flash forward. Eight outings asa Wolverine later — six X-Men moviesm and two solo films — Ja ackman is returning to the role fo or Logan, opening Friday. He hash said that it’s for the last time.
“It’s a career-defining role, an nd I’ve never loved playing a character more in my own life,” the 49-yearold Australian said. “In fact, maybe it took me all of these movies just to get to know him, but I’m so pleased that I did. Wolverine is forever.”
Then why is it over? “I do feel that I’ve done my job with him,” Jackman said.
Directed by James Mangold and co-starring Patrick Stewart and Richard E. Grant,
Logan is set in the near future in a world in which the mutant population has shrunk and the X-Men have disbanded. A weary Wolverine is hiding out on the Mexican border, where he has got a civilian job and is taking care of the ailing Professor X (Stewart).
A female stranger asks him to drive a girl to the Canadian border. The professor insists that they do it, because he thinks she’s someone he’s been waiting for: a girl with powers similar to Wolverine’s. Soon, however, they realise that dark forces are on their trail.
“The film is darker and grittier,” Jackman said. “As a character, Wolverine is tired and done. We find him in this movie at one of the lowest points in his life. He must cope with the question, ‘What is the collateral damage of a life being Wolverine?’ He also asks himself, ‘Who am I?’
“Everyone he has ever loved is gone, because he has outlived them all,” he said. “He feels as if he has brought more destruction than good. He’s living with a lot of regret and pain.”
Wolverine has lost some of his mutant healing abilities and finally started to age. “There are scars,” Jackman said, “because his body has been ravaged with all of the encounters of the past.”
Enter Laura Kinney (Dafne Keen), whom comic-book readers will recognise as X23, the product of an evil group’s effort to clone Wolverine’s mutant DNA for use as a weapon. She has similar powers, including regeneration, healing and agility — but only two claws
in each hand, instead of Wolverine’s signature three.
“She helps him answer the question: If you’re living with regret, is it a burden or do you push on?”, Jackman said.
To play Logan again, the actor had to beef up his training schedule. “I worked out about three hours a day, two hours in the morning, and then I fit another hour in sometimes later in the day,” he said. “You just have to do it, even when your body is saying no.”
Eating right was more important than the proper exercise regimen, however. “Seventy percent of how you look is really all about the eating,” Jackman said. “That’s what’s most vital to shaping your body.”
His strict diet focused on proteins such as chicken, fish and steak. It got a bit boring, Jackman admitted, but of course it was nothing new after eight previous outings as Wolverine.
“For these movies I eat about six times a day and add some steamed veggies to each meal,” he said, adding that brown rice was an occasional treat. “No alcohol. No sugar. Nothing fun.”
The look was only one part of the journey, of course.
“We wanted to make something really different,” Jackman said. “This film is tonally different and feels very fresh. I kept thinking The
Wrestler (2008) or Unforgiven (1992), because it’s a journey.
“Early on, we had the idea for the title not having anything to do with Wolverine in it,” he said.
“This movie is more about the man and the collateral damage of being this mutant. This is a more intimate story about a man’s vulnerabilities.”
How old is Wolverine now? “All I know is, I feel about 300 years old when I wake up at 4 in the morning to train,” Jackman joked. “I might even be older!”
Jackman wasn’t complaining. After all, the first X-Men movie launched his career in America.
“I remember the first time I played Wolverine in front of the camera,” he said. “I was so nervous and excited. When I heard ‘Action’, I felt as if I had been shot out of a cannon. In some ways it feels like yesterday.”
It’s actually been 16 years, though, and besides those X-Men and Wolverine movies, Jackman has racked up a filmography that includes Kate & Leopold (2001), Some
one Like You (2001), Swordfish (2001), Van Helsing (2004), The Prestige (2006), Australia (2008), Prisoners (2013), Pan (2015) and Eddie the Eagle (2016). His performance as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables (2012) earned him an Oscar nomination as Best Actor.
Jackman’s next movie casts him as the legendary P.T. Barnum: The Greatest Show
man is due out for Christmas, with Zac Efron, Rebecca Ferguson and Michelle Williams co-starring.
It’s the first of what he hopes will be a string of memorable new characters to fill the void left by the end of his run as Wolverine. “The time is right,” Jackman said. “I’m excited about what’s next.”
He knows, of course, that he’ll still be Wolverine in the eyes of the public, even when someone else steps into the role onscreen.
“I’m just so grateful to the fans for this amazing role that will never really go away,” he said. “There isn’t a day that goes by that someone doesn’t ask me about Wolverine.”
That happens most often in New York, where Jackman lives with his wife of 17 years, actress/producer Deborra-Lee Furness and their children, 16-year-old Oscar and 11-yearold Ava.
Wolverine has changed all of their lives. “Occasionally I use it to get reservations at restaurants,” Jackman joked. “You want to get a seat on the subway? Just play Wolverine.
“But I’m never him at home,” the actor added. “I don’t think I’d be very welcome if I scowled that much over breakfast.”
He admitted that he’ll miss playing everyone’s favourite Canadian mutant. “Absolutely,” he said. “I still think of him as the most badass comic-book character out there. He’s also way tougher than me, so the role was total wish fulfilment.”
For him, that is, but not his kids. “My son is older now,” Jackman said, laughing, “and the other day he said, ‘I used to think you were really like Wolverine, but you’re not, Dad.’ ”