Hugh Jackman often pockets his rage, save for when he plays X-Men character Wolverine.
While on the June 4 episode of Mythical inKitchen’s Last Meals, the actor explained the “changes” he’s seen in his personality since making his Wolverine debut in 2000 movie X-Men. Jackman would go on to play the character in 9 installments overall, excluding 2024 action-comedy Deadpool & Wolverine.
“Remember, the Hugh you're meeting now is a version of me that I want you to see,” Jackman told host Josh Scherer. “Whether it's conscious or unconscious and yeah, I don't go around like Wolverine telling people to F off [and] ‘I'm gonna slice you in half’ and being surly and grumpy.”
Jackman also admitted to having “a lot of that rage” that comes out “very, very rarely.” “But it may be rarely because I played Wolverine. That's the beauty of it,” he explained.
The actor went on to recall the memorable van fight scene between him and Ryan Reynolds, who played Deadpool, in Deadpool & Wolverine.
“We called cut. And he goes, ‘Dude, there was no part of me that didn't think you were gonna punch me in the face. Like, you've got serious repressed rage, dude,’” Jackman recalled.
“And I said, I don't know if it's suppressed because I get to do this, but it's easy for me to access. So, it’s there, man.”
Jackman added that he’s different from Wolverine “on the surface,” but after playing the action hero for 25 years, he can “absolutely see” how he’s changed. “Because it feels completely different. There's parts of the character that I'm making sense, there's things that I used to use as motivation that just don't affect me anymore,” he said.
Playing Wolverine has also affected Jackman’s health and while the actor visited BBC’s Front Row in 2023, he revealed that the character’s repetitive grunts and yelling took a toll on his vocal cords.
“My falsetto is not as strong as it used to be, and that I directly put down to some of the growling and yelling,” he shared at the time.
