At this point, there are no actors who have played their respective superhero roles as many times as Hugh Jackman has played James Logan aka Wolverine. If you count the original three X-Men movies, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, his brief cameo in X-Men: First Class and now The Wolverine and next year’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, that ties Jackman for the seven times that Roger Moore played James Bond and getting him closer to the Harry Potter kids’ eight movies among them.
This time, Logan is brought to Japan by Kenuichio Harada (Will Yun Lee), an old friend from the past, and he winds up in a web of murder and intrigue as he has sworn to protect his friends granddaughter Mariko (newcomer Tao Okamoto) along with Haradas feisty assassin Yukio (Rila Fukushima). Along the way, he has to fight Yakuza thugs, ninjas, a giant metallic samurai warrior as well as the deadly Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova), making this a far more dramatic, exciting and violent take on Wolverine than the one we saw in X-Men Origins. (You can read our early review of the movie by clicking here.)
ComingSoon.net/SuperHeroHype.com was invited to the New York City junket for The Wolverine and got to sit down with Jackman for a quick 3 to 4 minute video interview to talk about his latest round as Logan, how he’s been pivotal in keeping the character alive on screen and what about the character drives him to keep playing him after 13 years, his part in bringing on director James Mangold on board and his ability to handle different genres and action which was important to making The Wolverine work. We talk about how this doesn’t feel like a typical superhero movie but has elements of Hong Kong crime and samurai films, and finally, Jackman gives us a couple quick teases for Bryan Singer’s return to the “X-Men” franchise.
You can hear and see what Jackman had to say about the above in the video player below and look for an extensive interview with director James Mangold sometime in the next couple days. The Wolverine opens nationwide in 2D and 3D theaters on Friday, July 26.
