The storyline for the latest epic was loosely based on two X-Men comic-book stories, Dark Phoenix Saga and Gifted. It evolved around the events taking place after a private-led government-supported laboratory discovered that by using the DNA of a powerful boy, they could transform mutants into human beings. There was only one real option for the mutants – accept the cure, give up their powers and become human. But Magneto insisted on retaining his powers and set up a strong force to fight against the government and destroy the boy. Predictably, it was up to the X-Men to stop Magneto and his cronies.
Obviously, Hugh and the other original cast members were extremely concerned about the game of musical director chairs and he commented: ‘I was upset that Bryan wasn’t coming back to direct X3. It was so long before we started shooting the movie and for me at that point, I hadn’t committed to it. I committed to looking at the script.’ He instinctually knew that regardless of who was directing, they had to have a great script. ‘And by the way, Matthew Vaughn needs to be credited because he helped to develop that script and he did a great job in terms of a starting script. And Brett did a great job and smartly didn’t try to recreate the wheel. I don’t think people who are not very au fait with film will really be able to tell the difference stylistically. And yet Brett’s a really emotional guy, a real passionate guy. In some ways Bryan was more cerebral, where Brett was a little bit more suited to this script, which was more emotional and, even by the end, more melodramatic.’
With all the dark clouds hanging over the head of the sequel, however, there was at least some good news when Halle Berry, who had originally turned down the film, citing lack of character development in the previous two instalments and a tense relationship with director Bryan Singer as her reasons, changed her mind. Some speculated that her change of heart came not just with Singer’s departure but also with the major box-office flop of her movie Catwoman in 2004. She only agreed to return on the condition that her role was expanded. Consequently, her character served as leader of the X-Men, which actually was in keeping with the original comic books.
Hugh didn’t mind the change at all, believing the real strength of the movie to be in the evolution of the characters, in particular the roles he and Halle played. So while Berry’s character, Storm, got ready for motivational speeches, he tried hard to take Logan to another level. Simon Crane, stunt coordinator for Mr & Mrs. Smith, Troy and both the Tomb Raider films, helped him remove the Mike Tyson, knock-’em-out-with-one-punch street-fighter attitude and instead incorporated more art into his fighting style, something more akin to the artwork in the comics.
The script also provided Logan with greater scope as a team player as well as more interaction with the other characters throughout the motion picture. Hugh’s character was still a composed, leather jacketed, cigarette-smoking-in-the-school-corridor type of guy, but his loner image started to slip a little: ‘I wouldn’t say he was a card-carrying X-Man, or that he had a permanent suite at the mansion, but really in this movie his journey was more about what role he would take. He had to take on more responsibility which went against his grain but with which he coped.’
Although happy with the new development for Wolverine, he made a clean breast of it by saying that if he could have changed one more thing about his character, it would definitely have been the hairstyle. Not only did it make him look like an uncool Elvis Presley, the half a can of hairspray required to keep it in place put a hole in the ozone layer the size of Mars!
Although the hairstyle couldn’t change, there were other improvements to the movie, including the addition of new cast members. He was more than impressed with Brett’s casting brilliance, which included hiring Ellen Page in the role as Kitty Pryde, an appointment which he described as inspired. He was also impressed with the acting of Cameron Bright as Leech: ‘The little boy that played Leech, Cameron Bright, was so brilliant. I didn’t actually work with him but I saw him on set and he was just perfect for that role. It’s quite haunting. I saw him in Birth and he was great in that. In this movie you can’t get him out of your head. I also thought Ben Foster was terrific as the Angel. It was a tough role to pull off and I really believed his dilemma. I would’ve liked for him to have more to do.’
Kelsey Grammer, who played the role of Dr Frasier Crane in the TV hit Frasier for too many years to mention, and ex-football star Vinnie Jones also joined the group of actors as Dr Henry ‘Hank’ McCoy and the muscle-bound villain named Juggernaut respectively. Hugh recalled, ‘The truth of the matter is he [Kelsey] made me laugh so much that there was more footage on the cutting-room floor of me laughing because of Kelsey than actually good film. He just had a look in his eye that was so wicked. I really loved working with Kelsey.’
Vinnie, the hard man from the soccer field who made his violent debut as a rough, tough criminal in the British classic, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, was an old friend of Hugh’s. Alongside Halle Berry, he had worked with Jones on the film Swordfish several years before. ‘I remember on Swordfish Vinnie found a blow-up punching-bag doll of Wolverine and tied a noose around his neck above his trailer and proceeded to kick it around’. On the first morning of X-Men 3, Hugh thought he would have his revenge and so he turned up in full Wolverine gear, all muscle and mutton chops and said, ‘Okay, mate, this is your chance. Now you can really have a go at it for real.’ Vinnie stared at him for several moments before they both burst out laughing.
One night, when the pair were reminiscing, Vinnie informed Hugh that he had done about 27 films since Swordfish. Hugh couldn’t believe it. ‘Twenty-seven films?’ he commented, ‘I think I’ve done maybe five or six!’ Vinnie frowned at him and spoke slowly in his cockney accent, ‘Yeah, and you’ve made more in one fucking movie than I’ve made in all 27 put together!’
Their friendship grew even stronger off-camera with some friendly banter and rivalry as the Australian and English cricket teams battled it out back in England for the right to win the Ashes (the cricketing equivalent of the World Cup as far as both countries were concerned). Hugh reckoned that when he turned up on set after England lost, Vinnie had never watched cricket in his life: ‘Then all of a sudden he became a mad cricket fan, especially when England won the Ashes. I went over to my seat on the set one day and Vinnie had erected this tent which had the Union Jack on the top and an urn with ashes inside.’ He raised a smile before adding, ‘Vinnie, as normal, was so much fun to have around. He was great. He really popped in the film too. Oh, and by the way, no matter what he tells everyone, those muscles he had in the film, were all fake. Computer generated.’
Senior actors Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen also benefited from some computer-generation wizardry. In the opening flashback scene, their faces were completely de-aged with a technique called ‘digital skin-grafting’, using photographs taken years before. The special effects made them look 20 years younger.
Vinnie’s muscles, Patrick and Ian’s face, and a full-scale section of the Golden Gate Bridge the size of a basketball court used for the end action scene of the movie, were some of the few computer generations involved in the sequel. It definitely wasn’t a film that went overboard with special-effects technology, and Hugh applauded Ratner for his insistence on using as much real action as possible: ‘It was important to me because as someone who also watches films I can always tell when a double is being used and it takes me out of it. Maybe that’s because I’m looking at it through slightly more introverted eyes than most. But it’s the same thing with endless special effects; you instinctively know whether you’re being tricked or not, so the more you can do, the better.’
Because of all the live action, there were a tremendous number of scenes where the actors had to fly around the set on wires. This called for extensive planning and wirework, where many of the actors were more than happy to perform some of their own stunts. The whirlwind wire-stunt performed by Halle Berry during one fight scene reportedly caused her to become so nauseated that she vomited. Later, when re-shoot
ing more of the same action scene, someone from the crew apparently stood below her holding an empty bucket just in case.
Hugh again attempted to perform a lot of his own stunts. For the ones he didn’t perform, he brought in his brother-in-law, Rich, to act as his body-double: ‘It would be easy for me to tell everyone that it is me going 80 miles per hour into a tree and then falling down through all the branches, but usually it’s Rich, my brother-in-law. But we’re family, so it’s kind of the same thing.’ Rich had been working as Hugh’s stunt double for several years. And while stepping in for him on the set of Van Helsing, he’d been sent home with a broken leg when something went wrong: ‘So I got a call from big sis saying, “Start doing more of your own stunts, pal!”’
X-Men: The Last Stand completed shooting in January 2006, after six months of filming in Vancouver, Canada. According to associate producer Dave Gordon, it was one of the biggest productions ever filmed in Canada.
Hugh believed that X-Men 3 would spell the end of the X-Men saga, just as the studio had always planned. Definitely the biggest film in every way, it felt like a fitting end to the trilogy: ‘But if I was writing the story of how a movie got made and this was a case history, you wouldn’t want this as your ideal way to do it. But it seemed to me that there was a little bit of chaos to all of these movies and it somehow seemed to create a winning formula. So funnily enough, it kind of ended up being a situation where everyone gave the best that they had to give and I think ultimately the movie has been good for it. I think it worked but it should be that big because it’s the end of the trilogy. There have been three great movies and Bryan Singer pretty much started comic-book movies again. So you can be guaranteed that if there is another one it won’t just be a kind of cash-in, or glorious swan-song moment of “I’ve got to get back in the game”, that’s for sure.’
The film was released on 26 May 2006 in the United States and Canada. Despite mixed reviews from critics and fans, it did well at the box office. Its opening-day gross of $45.5 million is the fourth highest on record, while the opening weekend gross of $103 million is the fifth-highest ever. It also had the biggest Memorial Day box-office opening ever, only to be beaten by Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End in 2007.
It was quite apparent to the growing number of X-Men movie fans, that as the X-men trilogy progressed, Wolverine had increasingly become the main focus of the film, both on screen and off. Hugh’s face became the face of the X-men movies, his name topped the list of stars and his interview time was longer than that of the other actors: ‘I’ve always felt more comfortable being in the middle of it from the beginning to the end; I like working every day and being there. In this movie, there’s a whole subplot with Ian McKellen’s character that I wasn’t in, and there was about three weeks where I didn’t shoot, and it felt really weird. I would visit on set occasionally and just sort of pop in, and I came back to work and felt like, “Alright, I gotta get my legs back here.”’
As for Hugh’s son, Oscar, he found Van Helsing to be a little too scary but he really loved the Wolverine character and would don claws and cute sideburns to copy his dad on Halloween. ‘He liked the Wolverine toy the most, the one which was about a foot and a half tall and says things like, “I’ll slice you in half”. He takes it to bed. I’ll be in the other room and it goes off in the middle of the night. So he’s getting these subliminal messages, “This kid will take you down” and “I’ll slice you in half”. He kisses and hugs it. I can see years of therapy coming my way!’
Hugh and director Brett Ratner became such good friends that after the film had been completed, the director decided to have some fun with the star. In secret, he teamed up with Punk’d hooligan Ashton Kutcher to set Hugh up in one of the biggest and best Punk’d stunts ever attempted. Punk’d is an American hidden-camera show featuring producer and host Ashton Kutcher, who plays pranks on celebrities.
Hugh’s Punk’d experience began when he went over to Brett Ratner’s home and the director showed him around the $14 million mansion, taking time to tell him how much everything cost. Then, before the two friends went out for a meal together, Brett told Hugh that he wanted to cook for his girlfriend later on and persuaded the star to take a peek at his barbecue grill because he wasn’t sure how to use it. Hugh attempted to light the barbecue, but told Brett that it wasn’t working properly. The pair left for dinner – only to find Brett’s home engulfed in flames when they returned.
Hugh said, ‘When we get back there are four fire trucks, one hundred firemen; the entire house is on fire. They had explosions, they had smoke, they were throwing couches out the window. After five minutes this guy came down and said, “We’ve discovered the source, it’s coming from the barbecue.” He admitted that he was physically shaking as it got worse and worse, and when they were informed that another three houses were also on fire, he thought his life was over, believing he had possibly killed someone.
‘When the guy told me I’d been Punk’d, I was so into it I was like, “How can he be joking at a time like this?” When I finally realised what was going on, I just lay down on the ground. They handed me the release form to sign and I’m like, “Whatever.” I was this close to throwing up.’
Kutcher did admit that he felt wicked when Jackman fell hook, line and sinker for the prank. But it was another example of how far Hugh had come in the world of showbusiness, because in Hollywood, you aren’t really a star unless you have been ‘Punk’d’.
‘He’s the perfect man. He’s talented, bright, sweet, charming and gracious. Everyone loves him, and he’s sexy as hell.’
Rebecca Romijn, actress and co-star in X-Men
CHAPTER TWELVE
No Rest for Mr Nice Guy
Aside from X-Men, 2006 would go down as an extremely prolific year in terms of film releases for the Australian heart-throb. Hugh’s face appeared on every billboard in town it seemed, his name on the credits of numerous movies. Other, more established actors must have been shaking their heads in wonderment at how the guy from nowhere had suddenly landed so many plum roles alongside movie and musical legends such as Woody Allen, Michael Caine and David Bowie, as well as the new breed of stars like Christian Bale, Scarlett Johansson and a host of others. Hugh turned up on the big screen as a magician, a killer and part-astronaut, plus he’d been given the ultimate accolade for any Hollywood superstar of not one, but two voiceovers in two different big animation feature films.
Most of the movies were released in the second half of the year and to many, Hugh must have appeared to be the hardest-working man in showbusiness at the time. And although he had been working fairly steadily, he was the first to acknowledge that he really wasn’t working all that hard as a number of the projects, like the animation stuff, had actually been recorded during the year he was on Broadway. ‘I probably had a month off in between each of them. But people say, “You must work hard”. I’m like, most people work like 48 weeks a year, I’m lucky if I do 40.’
Scoop was released soon after X3. It gave Hugh the opportunity to work with the one and only Woody Allen (probably every actor’s ambition before they die and go to Tinsel Heaven). The Australian star was surprised when out of the blue he received a call from his agent saying that the casting director for Woody Allen wanted to see him about a movie that was being shot in England. Hugh thought the writer/director only based and shot his movies in and around New York, but Scoop was actually Allen’s second consecutive film to be set and shot in the English capital, following Match Point a few years before.
Before meeting the famous director, Hugh was informed that he should not be offended if his meeting with Allen took less than two minutes. The meeting actually took about three, which Hugh presumed to be a good thing. He remembered Allen to be shy and a little nervous, as if he was saying ‘Well, I’ve got this movie and I know you’ve probably got more important things to do. But if you want to read it, you probably don’t, but if you do and you like it, then, you know, I’d love you to do it.’
And that was pretty much it. Hugh got the role and spent the following few weeks smiling and repeating Allen’s name whenever anyone asked him what his next project was going to be.
Allen himself confessed to never having seen Hugh before they met. ‘I had never seen Hugh Jackman or his movies, or even knew what he looked like before I met him. He was just one of those people who I’d never come in contact with, for one reason or another. I only heard wonderful stories about him and how great he was as an actor. We called him and asked him if he’d be interested in doing something, and he said “Sure.” He came by to say hello, and he walked in and not only is he fun to look at, he is great-looking and he’s also lovely and suave. I offered him the role right away. I was very lucky that he was free to take it, and wanted to take it.’
The picture was a typical Allen movie – smart, funny, with moments of dark humour throughout. Following the memorial service for irrepressible investigative reporter Joe Strombel (Ian McShane), Strombel’s spirit finds himself on the barge of death with several other deceased individuals, including a young woman who believes she has been poisoned by her employer, Peter Lyman (Jackman). She tells Strombel that she thinks Lyman, a handsome British aristocrat with political ambitions, might be the Tarot Card Killer, a notorious serial killer of prostitutes, and that he killed her when she stumbled onto his secret.
When Sondra (Scarlett Johansson), an American journalism student, visits friends in London, she goes to see a stage performance by American magician Sid Waterman, played by Allen himself. She is shocked to find herself able to see and hear Joe from beyond the grave, and he gives her the scoop of a lifetime and urges her to pursue it. Sondra immediately starts chasing the big story, but ends up falling in love with the suspected murderer, Peter Lyman.
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