Hugh Jackman is one of the most established actors the world has ever seen. The Australian actor first rose to fame back in 2000 for his portrayal of Wolverine in the first X-Men movie. Jackman became the face of the franchise and later went on to portray the role of Wolverine in seven franchise movies. The actor even received a Guinness book world record for “longest career as a live-action Marvel character” in 2017 after he finally bid farewell to the role after playing it for 17 years.
Although it is now even hard to imagine someone else playing the part of Wolverine, Hugh Jackman revealed in an interview that he found it very hard to play the role of the mutated superhero during the filming of the first X-Men movie.
Hugh Jackman felt lonely doing the X-Men movie
Hugh Jackman did not have much prior experience doing movies before the X-Men movie. The Real Steel actor had majorly done theatre in Australia before he arrived in the USA. So, when he started filming for the X-Men movie, the actor felt lonely because of his theatre roots.
Jackman talked about the same in an interview recently with New York Times. He said,
“There were times when I was doing the first X-Men, my first big American movie, when I found it quite lonely. I was mainly from the theater, and you could feel that sense of, “Mmm, it’s a bad smell.” I don’t know exactly when things turned, but when the studio said they liked what I was doing, I could feel everyone coming to me. It made me sad. I realized film was more individual, less of an ensemble. The theater thrives on, and has to have, a feeling of ensemble, or it dies. There’s just no way to get through rehearsals, or eight shows a week, unless you have each other’s backs.”
Despite feeling lonely on the sets, Hugh Jackman did a brilliant job of playing Wolverine in X-Men. The movie turned out to be a massive success at the box office and led to a series of sequels and spin-offs.
The Van Helsing actor always tries to create a healthy and supportive environment on sets
In the same interview, Hugh Jackman reflected on how his experience while filming the first X-Men movie has defined how he has tried to create a healthy and supportive environment on the set of The Music Man. Jackman returned to Broadway last year to play the role of Harold Hill in the revival of The Music Man. He said,
“So ever since that first movie, I’ve been pretty proactive in trying to create an atmosphere that is supportive and open. I want to make sure that even under the pressure of a professional situation these kids are still kids.”
The revival of The Music Man turned out to be a huge success at the box office and Hugh Jackman even received 6 Tony award nominations for playing the role of Harold Hill in the musical. The Prisoners actor is all set to reprise his role as Wolverine as well in Deadpool 3 which will come out in November 2024.
X-Men is currently streaming on Disney+.
Source: The New York Times
