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Press Conference Interview With The Cast And Director Of The Wolverine

Sick of superhero movies yet? Well, I hope not, because on July 26th, Marvel is attempting another solo X-Men movie for everyone's favorite badass mutant. Once again played by Hugh Jackman, director James Mangold will attempt to dive deep into the character of Wolverine, exploring a comic arc that sets Logan in Japan without the help of any other mutants. Titled The Wolverine, audiences will finally get a chance to focus only on the man Logan is, as he tries to live with his past while staring into his eternal future.

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Hugh Jackman: Can I just say a couple of things? James said to me in the first phone conversation we had, “Tonally, I’m thinking The Outlaw Josey Wales.” I hadn’t seen it, so he immediately sent it to me and I watched it. If that was the tone, immediately I knew we were going to create something different, and setting it in Japan obviously makes it different. We wanted to make this a stand-alone film. We didn’t want it to feel like any other Wolverine or comic book movies – we wanted this to be in service of the character. We never worried about ratings, we just said “Let’s bring this character to life.”

One of the things in the comic books, which some of you will know, is the theme of women with Wolverince. It’s sort of his achilles heel in a way. In this movie, we have a predominance of women, especially having Famke back. She plays such a key role in this, and was fantastic. In a way, and in such a short time, we were able to explore that relationship more than ever.

I also want to point out these two [points to Rila Fukushima and Tao Okamoto]. It’s such a daunting thing to be in your first film, but when your first film is as big as this, as you all know there’s a lot of pressure. I’m so proud of what both of these woman achieved. I also want to take my hat off to James, because there are very few directors with the confidence in themselves as directors, or what they’re trying to produce, who would offer such pivotal roles to newcomers. I think it really helps the audience come to this world like Wolverine, in a fresh way and not know what’s going on, and I think both of them have done an unbelievable job.

Hiro Sanada: As a Japanese born actor, I’d like to say thank you to James, Hugh, and the entire crew, because sometimes when people film a movie in Japan, there are a lot of misunderstandings about our culture. But, they respected our culture and researched a lot. When I saw the movie, I was so happy because it had a great balance, a nice mixture of East and West, traditional and modern. I believe the Japanese audiences will be happy when they’re watching. It’s a very super-modern Japan with nostalgia, and I felt a taste of old, classic Japanese movies, but also a modern Japan. I think it’s a great mixture. I’m very happy to be a part of this movie.

Hugh Jackman: I don’t know if I’m going to get a question relating to this, so I’m just going to tell a quick story about Hiro.

It was beautiful what you said, and it’s indicative of who he is. I have to talk about one story. When we were finishing on set one day, I saw the lineup of all the extras, and they were actually lining up – normally extras just bolt and leave. I thought maybe they were collecting cell phones, maybe they’re handing over some prop, but when I craned my head around, around the side was Hiro, who has done what, 80 films in Japan?

Hiro Sanada: 60 [Laughs]

Hugh Jackman: Right, 60 films! He’s an icon there. He stood on the side, and one by one shook their hands and bowed, thanking every extra on the film. When people say to me “Well you’re known as a nice guy in Hollywood,” I go “Nope, I’m nothing.” The humility, the respect, and the generosity was there with Hiro, and it was there with the girls, which made a huge difference. I’m sorry to embarrass you for telling that story, but to me that really is indicative of who you are.

James Mangold: In relation to what Hiro said, we are successfully not existing only in Western cliches of Japanese life. I think that is a credit, honestly, to the cast, who were very vigilant and kind to me in explaining when I was doing something idiotic. Also, they were watching out for language, and customs, and even on days they weren’t working in character, they were coming on-set.

What Hugh touched upon very graciously about being brave casting these ladies, I take the compliment with an open heart, but I also think they were the best. They were the best. It’s easy when you’re reading people, meeting people, and two people land in front of you. Each one speaks to you in the role, inhabits the role. I don’t believe acting is taught, I believe is unlearned. We all are born, playing and acting, but we all learn to get self-conscious and frightened of being other people and pretending. What I’m always looking for is people who haven’t lost it, instead of who need to learn it. I think that’s true of everyone on this stage.

There’s a tremendous action scene that takes place on top of a speeding train (you’ve all seen it in the trailer), and someone asked about the behind-the-scenes work that went into making that whole sequence come together:

James Mangold: That scene is made up of hundreds of pieces. It required two kinds of planning. One of the things that can happen while planning an action sequence for a film, especially when you have resources, is that you can do anything. The trick when you can do anything, is there’s a huge temptation for the filmmaker to start flying the camera through the window of the train, up through the accordion, out the window, and up the drain pipe. My overriding goal, both with the actors and the way I was directing the film, was to try and make the film more real. Don’t make shots you couldn’t make. Technology allows you to do anything, you can literally do anything. When that happens, it almost puts the filmmaker in an odd position in which you can suddenly create any frame in any shot, and it’s almost too many choices. Why does the chase in The French Connection with Popey Doyle look so good? Because it was a handheld camera running under the overpass at high speeds, and it’s real. Every time you’re doing a sequence now, with all the technology available, your crew will ask you, “Well do you want the windshield in front of you? We can do it without the windshield.” Everything can be better, more visible, the camera can move from here to there, and I’m having to say no. I’m saying “Give me the shot as if I were doing it all, absolutely, 100% for real.”

The other side of it is the cast, which is of course Hugh, and the great guys playing the Yakuza fighting with him. They went through physical hell in the way their bodies were being slammed around. When they weren’t really risking themselves, and we were doing green screen work, we were literally blowing 700,000 pounds of wind in their eyes. I think Hugh would say his greatest achievement was keeping his eyes opened while we had six leaf blowers aimed at his face.

Hugh Jackman: I couldn’t make it look like Wolverine was crying [Laughs]. It was a humbling thing to watch because I loved it. There was one scene where there was literally this industrial leaf blower. As I looked back, you can literally see the folds in my skin flapping around. That was one of those points where you think “I feel young, but I don’t look so young.” It was three weeks, and I’ve done a lot of action things, but this was certainly one of the hairiest. A few cuts, bruises, a couple of tweaked necks, but the experience was very exciting because I thought it was emblematic of what James was trying to do. Creative, fun, and really great action. He was going to give the audience what they wanted, but not so overblown.

I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to spend two hours in a theater, I can only look at pretty, amazing visuals for so long if I don’t care about what’s going on.