X-MEN's Wolverine: Hugh Jackman

By: Steve Fritz
Date: Thursday, July 20, 2000

Unlike Wolverine, his mutant character in the blockbuster X-Men movie, actor Hugh Jackman didn't appear to mind growing up a bit different. If anything, the lanky Australian (he stands an easy six-feet and two-inches, if not even taller, in his cowboy boots) seems more happy-go-lucky than dark and dangerous.

'When I was growing up in school I was called Hugh The Bootman or Hugh the Kangaroo,' Jackman recounts. 'I went through what everyone goes through from about age 11-14, but there's nothing unusual about that. I really didn't feel different until I decided to become a professional actor at age 23. I had done amateur before then, but when I decided to go for training, I felt very different. I ended up feeling very much like the dunce in the class. I wasn't smoking or running around in the obligatory leather jacket. I didn't carry my angst on my shoulder. I remember telling myself I better find some serious darkness in myself or I'm not going to be taken seriously at all.

'So for a few months, I delved in and wrenched out and generally made things real dark and bleak for myself,' Jackman continues. 'Then my family came up to me and said if you're going to be that miserable you might as well be a laborer or something else and have some fun. That's about as far as I ever went.'

While Jackman enjoys the sudden success and hype surrounding his portrayal of Logan/Wolverine in X-Men, he also admits he's glad the differences between himself and Wolverine, both emotionally and physically, are night and day. 'It's not really such a bad thing, particularly when you are playing an icon like Wolverine,' says Jackman. 'It's sometimes better to really be someone nobody's heard of because they don't know what to expect. Also, I don't mind a little bit of anonymity. It allows me to ride on the subway.'


The fact is a year ago the subway probably would have been the only way Jackman commuted around New York (where he's currently shooting a film starring Ashley Judd). His getting the role appears to be as much luck as anything else. Prior to playing Logan he was working musical theatre; not bad work if you can get it, but only your mom would appreciate you being in Roger's and Hammerstein's Oklahoma.

But, as the now-getting-old story goes, Jackman was a last-minute replacement for up-and-coming fellow Oz native Dougray Scott. At the time X-Men was to be filmed, Scott was tied up playing the main heel in Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible II, and couldn't make the shoot on time. So director Bryan Singer had to find a new Wolverine.

'The long-short story is Dougray had it, [then] wasn't available. I auditioned and was getting close. Then Dougray was available again and so I wasn't. Then he wasn't involved again, so I was again. I was pretty much always the bridesmaid,' says Jackman. 'The movie gods were smiling on me,' he adds with a laugh. 'I'm really thrilled I got it. I really hate the fact that someone who also had the role had to lose it. I met him, and he was very gracious and shook my hand. He's a big man.'

Yet in spite of his impressive height, one would be hard-pressed to recognize Jackman walking down the street. He's now using this anonymity to his advantage and also, sometimes, to his embarrassment. 'When I first got to New York, my friend dragged me and my wife to F.A.O. Schwartz [the world famous toy store] to see the X-Men toy display,' Jackman recounts. 'It was quite extraordinary, and my wife couldn't quite resist telling one boy there that I was Wolverine.

'Well, the boy just started staring at me while his father grabbed everything with me on it and had me sign it. So here's Daddy going 'Hey! You're Wolverine! How was it like playing him?' and all these other questions. Meanwhile the kid just stands there staring. So after a while I turned my attention to the kid. I asked him if he watched X-Men. He said [meekly] 'yes.' I then asked him who's his favorite character, and he said 'Cyclops.''

Jackman explodes in laugher while James Marsden--who is within earshot of this story--licks his finger and strikes it across an imaginary board.

Speaking of action figures, Jackman has an interesting view on the licensing and merchandising aspects of the film, thanks to his own childhood involvement with action figures. 'I find it kind of scary because I know what I was like when I was a kid,' he says. 'I used to feed my action figures to the squids that were off of the bay I lived near. I tore off their arms and replaced them with other limbs, stuck them with pins, freezed them and did other awful things to them.

'Nothing struck me as more weird than to walk into my trailer and see a full-blown punching back of myself,' he adds. 'That's probably going to be a prize possession for a few people that I know. There's some unnerving moments.'

Evidently, Jackman is full of stories like this, and it did wonders in endearing him with the cast and crew of X-Men. It didn't hurt that Jackman found playing Wolverine a gas. 'I loved it,' he says. 'It was just a ball. Physically it was fantastic. I felt like a little kid going to school each day but my lunch hour was extended to 16 hours a day.

'It was a challenge, too. It was the hardest I ever worked, very intense, both physical and the emotional parts of it. Bryan demanded of me not just some cardboard cutout of rage or anger. He was always stopping me and saying 'Nope! Too cavalier. Keep true to the human, who he is and what's going on underneath.' He really stayed on top of me that way.'

The payoff is that once skeptical fans are now find nothing but good things to say about Jackman's portrayal of their most beloved mutant (well, except for that one five year-old boy). Audiences better get ready as Jackman announced that he's already signed for the sequel, if there is one. No doubt he'll have more stories to tell when that film is over, too.