Tag: patrick stewart

Why Patrick Stewart Loved Playing an Unstable Professor X in Logan

The final Wolverine movie has Patrick Stewart’s Charles “Professor X” Xavier at his worst — and the actor couldn’t be happier.

“When we meet Charles in this episode of the X-Men he is fragmenting, seriously falling apart, not only at risk to himself but a massive risk to others,” the “Logan” star tells Made in Hollywood reporter Damaris Diaz. “There is an instability in his mind which can create mayhem in the outside world, serious mayhem. That was intriguing because there was 17 years of being the calm, controlled intellectual that was Charles Xavier. Then to explore what would happen if this person would disintegrate is the kind of thing that actors just relish.”

Patrick Stewart Almost Turned Down Professor X Role

Playing Professor X has been a long cinematic journey that Stewart nearly didn’t make. “I almost said no to the role,” he says. “In fact, for a moment I think I did say no. But lunch with (director) Bryan Singer persuaded me that I was wrong for doing that. Thank you, Bryan Singer.”

Also influential was an office meeting with “X-Men” franchise producer Lauren Shuler Donner.

“I pushed the door open and and she picked something off her desk and held it up in front of her, and I said, ‘Why are you showing me on the front cover of a comic?’ And she said, ‘Exactly!’” he recalls. “That’s how it began: with a vote of confidence from our producer.”

Taking the role was a decision he would never regret.

“I have loved the experience of the companionship that I have found with my colleagues on this project, ranging from getting to know actors who I had admired for a long time better — Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, James Marsden — and finally becoming close, deep friends with a man who I had admired at close range for a long time, Ian McKellen,” he says. “It was only because we spent so many hours in our adjoining trailers during the long times that you wait for the cameras to roll that he and I found out we had much in common and that this developed not into a serious friendship, but also a collaboration. I had just finished six months on stage with Ian in London.”

The pair starred in Harold Pinter’s comic classic “No Man’s Land” on the West End.

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How Hugh Jackman Feels About Saying Goodbye to Wolverine in Logan

After 17 years, Hugh Jackman is hanging up his steel claws.

“I knew it was going to be my last one so it … has to be perfect,” the star of “Logan” tells Made in Hollywood reporter Damaris Diaz. “I wanted to be at peace saying goodbye. I wanted to be really happy. I didn’t want to leave a stone unturned. So every bit of it I’ve been very involved in.”

The Wolverine swan song has a weary Logan caring for an ailing Professor X, played by Patrick Stewart, while also protecting a newcomer — a young a mutant girl, who is very much like Logan, from dark forces trying to capture her.

“In a way, this is my love letter to the fans, as well as I think to people who have never seen an X-Men film or a comic book film,” Jackman says. “We’re just trying to make a great film, not necessarily a ‘comic book movie.’”

Hugh Jackman Calls Logan the Most Personal Wolverine Film

Jackman calls “Logan” one of the most realistic film in the franchise, taking the cast and crew to actual locations.

“It was hot, it was uncomfortable, it was on the road,” he says. “We weren’t in a soundstage doing a lot of green screen, which a lot of these movies seem to have become now. It felt real and rooted in reality. So that’s what we wanted. But I got to tell you it was hard work, very hard work, but incredibly satisfying.”

It’s also, Jackman says, one of the most personal of the movies. He knew its success hinged on finding the right young costar for a critical role, and he says producers succeeded in casting child actress Dafne Keen.

“I was really nervous when I read the treatment,” he says. “I love this idea that this movie is about family and putting a family together and putting Logan in the middle of it because he so doesn’t want to be involved. He doesn’t want to love. Love brings pain. So I thought, How the hell are we going to find someone who can play this role, who’s in the entire movie, hardly says anything, and holds the screen? And as soon as I saw the tape of her, I was just blown away.”

Hugh Jackman Says He’s at Peace Ending His Run as Wolverine in Logan

In the end, there’s as much emotion off screen, as Jackman comes to terms with giving up an iconic character.

“The word is not bittersweet. There’s not bitterness,” he says. “It’s quite sweet. It’s calm. It feels calm. It just feels right. I’m really relieved to feel that. You don’t really know. You don’t know until that last day of filming how you’re going to feel, or when I see the movie. I love this character so much. I actually love this character more than ever. But I don’t feel it’s gone. I can’t feel it’s gone. It’s there with me, that experience is with me for life. I just feel happy. I’m grateful.”

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