Hugh Jackman Unleashed at Comic Con
Released on 07/21/2013
I'm here with Hugh Jackman, the star of
The Wolverine.
Hi Cara. Hi.
How are you?
Thanks so much for being here.
I like the Wonder Woman.
Oh thank you.
Is that your alter ego?
Today it is. Oh I see.
They told me I wasn't allowed to wear it on my head.
You gonna do it? Oh yes.
So, I liked your alter ego.
Yeah, I like him too.
You know what's funny is I was watching
a 60 Minutes interview with you and you
were talking about playing Jean Valjean
and how it was a role of a lifetime
and how your entire acting career built
up to that, but that Wolverine is really you.
That's your character.
Well, you know maybe they cut it out,
but certainly I will never be able to
actually discuss roles of my lifetime
without mentioning this guy.
It's been 13 years now and I'm playing it now
for the seventh time, which still
amazes me for those words to come out of my mouth.
I think for any actor you're amazed to
ever get hired again for anything,
let alone the same part seven times.
I love the character,
I'm probably enjoying him more now than ever Cara, really.
I don't think that anybody can think of you
without thinking of Wolverine or
think of Wolverine without thinking of you,
it's so symbolic.
Well, that's what I want my kids to think.
Yeah?
As soon as they give me any lip, trust me,
this guy comes out.
That's what I was wondering, is that,
when you spend so much of your life
playing the same role and developing
that character, I'm wondering if there's
a clear distinction or if it starts to become blurry
sort of where he stops and you begin.
No, there's a very clear distinction.
Probably I'm a much happier, nicer, calmer person
for playing him.
For six months every two or three years
I get to extol my anger, all the rage,
that all comes out on a daily basis.
Very therapeutic.
Yeah, the other day, my daughter did say,
I'm shooting X-MEN: Days of Future Past right now.
I was going out back for four days shooting.
She says, Oh dad, you got to leave?
I go, I'm sorry.
She goes, I know that makes me really kinda sad
and happy and I went happy?
She goes, Whenever you're playing Wolverine,
you are a lot stricter than you normally are.
So there you go, maybe the lines are blurry.
That's so funny.
Do you ever forget that you don't actually
have claws growing out of your hands?
I never forget. That's good.
Because I do have them. I do.
After the second movie it was so ridiculous
replacing them all the time that I just had
them surgically put in.
I'm gonna take your word on that.
Yeah, definitely, take my word on that.
Can you imagine at the airports,
it'd be such a nightmare.
It'd be such a nightmare (laughter).
Actually the problem was, as an actor
every job you do, you go to punch someone,
whether it's on stage, so you're so used to
pulling a punch, stopping there,
that when I first started,
I actually had to really practice imagining
that I had to stop here instead of stopping here.
I stabbed a number of people,
I should know their names, because I feel
you should probably know the names of people you stab.
Anyway, a number of people I have stabbed
including myself, I mean equal opportunity stabbing.
I can't imagine suddenly having a body part
that is a weapon, I mean how sharp are they really?
In the first movie, they were literally knives.
Seriously, they were so sharp.
Every time, I'm clumsy too, I have long arms
and long head and you know I'm like the robot
in the Robinsons, you know that guy, Danger danger.
So as I was swinging, they kept going into my thigh,
I got myself in the forehead
and they were so sharp that now they've made them PVC,
still sharp enough to have someone's eye out,
but not as dangerous as they used to be.
That's smart, that's really smart.
When you come to Comic-Con, I mean this must be
the epitome of fandom for you,
this is where all of the biggest Wolverine fans
come every year.
How many times have you been to Comic-Con now?
I've been here four times and I've only been here
twice with this character.
There is nothing quite like it.
It's always a little, it's difficult for the people
who bring me, say I came for Van Helsing in Universal,
I could see every question I got was about Wolverine.
The entire front, when we were presenting Van Helsing,
there were 12 Wolverines with their shirts off,
jacked, just yelling through the whole thing.
It was kinda like there's really no point
in me coming here unless it's with Wolverine.
It's a great opportunity for me,
because I owe my career to this character
and the fans who have made it possible.
I get one shot every three or four years
to say thank you to them.
Not only that, the creators, Len Wein,
Chris Claremont, all these guys are here,
and Stanley, it's a great opportunity
for me to say thank you to them.
I want to know about this new film, The Wolverine.
So this is focusing just on that character.
You're in Japan and it seems kinda dark.
It's a little darker.
If there's ever a turn of a movie,
that should fit a character like Wolverine, it's dark.
Really, I think what Nolan did with Batman
was fantastic and paved the way and I think
we had an opportunity in this movie
and for whatever reason for better or worse,
I think the first Wolverine movie ended up feeling
like another X-MEN movie, we had a bunch of different
mutants and this is not that.
It's not wall to wall mutants, it's not wall to wall CGI.
Even as spectacular as the action scenes are,
they're in a way quite human and quite visceral
and real and that's the turn we needed
for this character.
Kinda a character study of Wolverine.
Absolutely, because, he is, I'm biased,
one of the more interesting of the Comic book heroes.
Even in his DNA, when he was created,
there weren't many anti-heroes,
he may have been the first.
I think his real defining quality
is a human quality, it's that,
the rage, that's the reason why you don't
want to piss him off.
Look, he's got claws, he can heal himself,
he can't fly, he can't jump buildings,
he doesn't have lasers coming out of his eyes.
If you're gonna make a movie called the Wolverine,
you have to get inside what makes him tick
and it's that berserk rage and all the pain
and crap that makes that possible.
So when you're here at Comic-Con,
obviously you're doing panels
you're doing signings, you have all of the fanfare
around it, you can't just walk the floor, can you?
It's so funny you mention that because honestly,
already today, I have seen three Logan look-alikes
that look more like me than me.
And I'm just going, That's me, no that's me.
I honestly think if I walk out there,
through Hall H as Wolverine, people would go,
Eh, not bad, he's alright, a little too tall.
But apart from that, I think that's the way
I should go about.
You have to try that.
I think I really should. You have to.
I'm gonna do it one year, I'm gonna come
in the full thing, like that.
And watch people go, Oh whatever.
So I have to ask, if you Hugh Jackman,
you the man, could have any super power
for real a super power, what would it be?
Teleporting. Yeah?
Without a doubt, I love traveling.
I have family all over the world,
my kids are back in LA, I'm in San Diego,
if I could go and swim in Bondi Beach
in Sydney every morning and then I could
pop into work wherever I am around the world,
that by far would be the best thing.
So super power of convenience really?
Totally. Convenience and avoiding security
at airports, that's pretty much what it's about.
Because yeah, they just gonna give you
trouble for those claw hands all the time.
Cara look at you, love it, love that.
Thank you so so much for being here.
That was a great wrap up, pulled back
a joke I heard, oh I love that.
That is why you are Wonder Woman.
Thank you so much.
No problem.
I'm Hugh Jackman, we're at Comic-Con,
this is Cara, aka Wonder Woman,
and you are with Wired.
Starring: Cara Santa Maria
Featuring: Hugh Jackman
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