Brutal, Minimalist and Yep, Emotional, Logan Is Hugh Jackman’s Farewell to Wolverine, and the Metal- Boned Brawler as You’ve Never Seen Him Before.
IN THE END IT WAS JERRY SEINFELD WHO FINISHED OFF WOLVERINE. After eight films and well over a decade as the quick-healing breakout star of the X-Men films, Hugh Jackman was beginning to wonder when the time would come to step away from his signature role. At Seinfeld’s birthday party in April 2014, he asked for advice that changed his life. “He doesn’t particularly like parties, and I’m a little the same,” says Jackman of the legendary comedian. “So we always end up in a corner chatting. I started asking about Seinfeld. Jerry said, ‘I always had a belief that creatively you should leave on a high.’ Not just for legacy, though I’m sure that was a part of it. But he said that if you are tapped out, it’s Herculean to work out what the next thing is. If you leave something in the tank creatively, then you just spark onto the next thing. I went home from that dinner, and I just knew. This was it.”
Excited, Jackman recorded his thoughts as a voice memo on his cell phone. Then, the next morning, he emailed senior executives at 20th Century Fox, proposing he make one final solo film as Logan/Wolverine, before hanging up the mutant’s claws for good. He wanted his swan song to be something different, a character focused drama pitched somewhere between Unforgiven and The Wrestler in tone. “I was expecting a little more resistance, I suppose, at the studio level,” he recalls. “But I didn’t get that at all.”
The result is Logan. And it could be the most surprising comic-book film yet.
This story is from the March 2017 edition of Empire.
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This story is from the March 2017 edition of Empire.
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