Hugh Jackman on bidding adieu to Wolverine after 17 years - "There was a weight of expectation that I’d been carrying"

Actor Hugh Jackman took up the role of Wolverine in the year 2000 in X-Men. He did nine movies overall as the gritty Marvel superhero. But, when it came to bidding adieu to the character, it was an emotional farewell.

In an interview for Variety‘s Actors on Actors issue, Jackman spoke to Les Miserables co-star Anne Hathaway about 2017’s Logan directed by James Mangold. “There were so many crossovers by the end because I’d played it for so long,” Jackman said. “I knew it was going to be my last one way before we wrote it. I made that decision. There was a weight of expectation that I’d been carrying. I was super invested.”

It was an R-Rated movie and the last scene was Hugh's character Logan sacrificing his life in order to save his adopted daughter Laura (Dafne Keen). “I felt so in it,” Jackman said. “I was working with a director that I worked with three times before, who I trust implicitly, Jim Mangold. I remember when we shot that scene, we were shooting very high altitude, and there were thunderstorms going off everywhere, and we had to shut down. He just said, ‘We can’t do this big stunt scene. But we’re just going to do the death scene.’ I’m like, ‘Like, now?’ He goes, ‘I’m just going to have you and Dafne, and if you could just do that.’ I’m like, ‘All right.’ He knew that’s best for me.”

“We got there and we’re shooting the scene,” Jackman further said. “Dafne was 11. She was fantastic. We shot Dafne, and she turned around in two takes and he goes, ‘Let’s just kick out. Let’s do another.’ I said, ‘You sure? I feel like–‘ and he goes, ‘Man, let’s just stop the clocks. Let’s not worry about everything. This is the end of 19 years. Sit it in for half an hour'”

“He rolled the cameras,” Jackman recalled the last scene and how it was filmed. “Him allowing me — not just as an actor, but as Hugh — to remember that moment. It was a luxury that I’ll never forget.”

Logan was loosely based on Mark Millar and Steve McNiven's 'Old Man Logan' comic and was directed by James Mangold. In the near future, a weary Logan was looking after an ailing Professor X in a hideout on the Mexican border. But Logan's attempts to hide from the world and his legacy were up-ended when a young mutant played by Dafne Keen arrived who was being pursued by dark forces. This was set in the year 2029.

ALSO READ: Ryan Reynolds crashes original X-Men’s virtual reunion with Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart and Famke Jansson

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