Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Ryan Reynolds, Taylor Kitsch, will.i.am, Lynn Collins and Director Gavin Hood Press Conference

Hugh, this is your fourth time playing this same character. What is new for you about it? Are you used to the action or is it still new to you?
?Hugh Jackman: "Everything felt new to me. Everything was new. It took me a little while to get over the fact that Halle Berry wasn’t on set, most days.

Sorry, I jest. Yes, I’m playing the same character, but I’m filling in approximately 100 years of his life that had never been explored before and had been unknown to him. So, it was a chance to reveal that."

"What Gavin and I talked about, right from the beginning, was that we didn’t want that shot at the beginning of the movie where people say, 'Yeah, that’s Wolverine!' I wanted to see him evolve. You see him, at the very beginning, as a little kid, very unlike how you would imagine Wolverine to be as a young boy. That was a wonderful young actor. And, to watch him evolve was fantastic. Not my main reason, but part of the reason I wanted someone like Gavin - and all the actors shared this feeling - is that he is an amazing actor’s director. He gets straight to the heart of it. He won’t take any B.S. He won’t take anything less than your best, most committed work, all the time. There was many an occasion where I felt a kind of friendly arm around my shoulder after take one, or sometimes before take one.

Gavin has that ability, even though I had played the role three times, and yes it may be my fourth time putting the claws on, to make it feel fresh, new, deeper and, hopefully, more honest."

For Gavin, what challenges did you face in honoring what came before while adding something uniquely original for your own vision?

Gavin Hood: "Coming into a franchise that’s done as well as this franchise has done is obviously, at some level, a little intimidating. I think I was lucky that this is a prequel and not a sequel because, in that sense, if you’ve never seen any of the other X-Men movies, you can still go to this movie and enjoy it because this is the beginning and, hopefully, then you’ll go and see the others. At the same time, I don’t think a director consciously says, 'I want to do something stylistically different.' By and large, directors don’t really know how to do something other than the way it comes to us. It seemed to me that there was an opportunity here to do two things. There was the opportunity to deliver the expected spectacle - the action, the energy and all of that wonderful eye-candy, great stuff. But, also, there was an opportunity to do something that was really character-driven and work with, ironically, very human emotions in what is an otherwise great big, mythic, comic book story."

"Really, what I wanted to be sure we did, and Hugh very much wanted this too, when he first spoke to me, was to make sure that people really attached to the character. I think it would be very easy, and there certainly was a moment for me, to be caught up in the visual effects and the action and let that overwhelm you, and forget that the most important thing, at the end of the day, for me, when making a film, is still that moment when I’ve got a long lens on an actor’s close-up - with any one of the actors. That’s when I’m at my most focused because if you don’t crack that moment behind the eyes, where those reactions are just not melodramatic or goofy, and they just somehow attack that moment perfectly, all of the special effects in the world aren’t going to save you. So, I’m very proud of the performances by the actors and I thank Hugh for getting me involved in this. I had a great time."

And Liev, how was the training for you?

Liev Schreiber: "Something like 12 years ago Hugh and I did a film together and, believe it or not, I think I actually was bigger than Hugh in those days. Things have changed over the years and he’s grown substantially, as an actor and as a human being, in general. So, the first agenda was getting bigger. I made the awful mistake of going online to see what the fans thought and, of course, they said, 'You need to get bigger.' So, I started working out with Hugh and doing the high-protein diet. Between the two of us, I think we wiped out a whole gene pool of chickens. I know people think that it’s a departure for me, but I don’t really. I feel right at home with that sibling rivalry thing with Hugh. It was a lot of fun."

  As an acting technique, do any of you ever listen to music on set to get into character? If so, what was on your playlist?

Taylor Kitsch: "Obviously, Gambit is from New Orleans, so I was listening to John Lee Hooker all the time."

Lynn Collins: "I had one song, 'Apologize,' from One Republic. I listened to it constantly and now I can’t listen to it anymore. It ruined the song for me."

Hugh Jackman: "Not on set but when I train I listen to Godsmack, which is the kind of music I would rarely listen to. I’d listen to it really high, as loud as I can. Sometimes, it’s a little embarrassing when you’re in a public gym. To me, that was as close to Wolverine as I could get."

Ryan Reynolds: "I heard Faith Hill coming out of Hugh’s trailer, to be honest."

Hugh Jackman: "There is a sensitivity to Wolverine."

Ryan Reynolds: "Yes, there is."

Hugh Jackman: "It’s not easy to access."

Ryan Reynolds: "For me, it was a band called The National. I was obsessed with them. I loved them."

will.i.am: "I’m always making music..."

Hugh Jackman: "Yeah, all the time, on set."

will.i.am: "...so I had to stop because I had to focus. This was my first big thing. I took my studio there, at first, and then I got a whisperer saying, 'You should probably take your studio out of the trailer.' I was making beats in my off time because you’re sitting there and waiting a lot. So, I made about a thousand beats."

Liev Schreiber: "In between takes Will and I would play this game where we would hum TV show tunes to each other and see if we could identify them. He has an incredible memory for that, especially with '80s sitcoms."

  Page 3:Memories from the Set and Jackman Stabs Kitsch (on accident, of course)