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After bagging a Golden Globe for his turn in hit musical Les Misérables, the Aussie star got his claws out for a solo Wolverine film before starring in the tense, Oscar-fancied thriller Prisoners.

With The Wolverine out on DVD and Blu-ray on Monday, we caught up with him to chat about Marvel’s iconic hardman.

You are Hollywood’s longest-serving superhero. How does that make you feel?

Really grateful. That’s the kind of overwhelming feeling I have, especially being on this film that I am shooting now, X-Men: Days of Future Past, with this great cast and with Bryan Singer. What gave me so many opportunities in this business was playing this part in X-Men and that it is still going is just amazing for me. It is such a rare thing and I am enjoying it more than ever. You may be surprised to hear that but I really am. Does getting in shape for the role get harder each time, as you’re always a little bit older? Oh, yes. That is easily recognized because, first of all, the diets become stricter, the regimes become harder, I need longer to get there and I get punished for any sins so I really have to stay more on it than ever before. But I am really happy with the results so in the end that’s okay. It is a purity but it is not forever. I am not a gym junkie and I am not going to be like that forever. Trust me.

What regime did you use?

Basically, there is a lot of science behind intermittent fasting or having a period of each day when you are not eating. So you eat for an eight-hour window and then don’t eat for 16 hours. I feel a lot better on that regime; my energy is better, I sleep better. There’s a lot of research saying that it’s better for your heart, cancer and many, many things to give your body a break, but during those eight hours I eat like 6,000 calories and that is kind of brutal.

What happened to your neck when you did the Bullet Train scene? You got quite badly hurt?

When I get flung out of the train they had to simulate what it was like for your body going out of a train at 300km an hour. I had a rig on and I was connected to the other actor, because we were flying out together, and something happened to our position. I got caught up the wrong way so when I hit the train my neck got caught. To simulate the whip they would whip my whole body around, so my neck was put into a very unnatural position and for a second you hear a little ‘click’ sound and you are not sure what is going on. It was actually okay but I had a very, very sore neck and a good fright.

What did you learn from that?

I have been around long enough to know that these things happen and you have got to be very safe and you have to prepare. You have to rehearse, which we’d done, and I think I am being honest when I say I am a little warier as the years go on. I always now get my stunt-double to do a rehearsal. I say I don’t want to rehearse. I want a first take because sometimes when people rehearse it is half-hearted. You might have the riggers but not everyone else is there. As soon as you have a take it is a different atmosphere and I want to test things under that situation.

Was that the most imperilled you’ve felt on a movie set?

That was three weeks and there was almost something every day on that one. There was a lot of flying around on that train and they were real trains that we were flying and landing on and flipping over. It was a little hairy.

When do you think that the Academy will start taking comic-book movies more seriously?

Heath Ledger won the Oscar for his portrayal so in many ways I think they are seeing it. I think more and more they are seeing the quality of filmmaking and the aspirations of filmmakers. I think the same about comedies. I always think that not enough of the academy members have actually tried to do a comedy, but heaven knows how hard that is to pull off. So when you get a great comedy — I thought Bridesmaids was going to win a whole load of stuff.

What is Logan’s main curse? Is it that he lives forever?

That is a very good question. We explore in this what it is like to live forever when you really don’t want to live, when you have lost the reason or the meaning of life. Really, his main curse is this beserker rage. It is what defines him. He doesn’t have the most powerful powers — on paper his powers aren’t that incredible if you think of other mutants who would probably have the upper hand. He can’t jump, he can’t fly; he has claws and he can heal but he is probably the most feared or powerful in a way because of that very human quality of his inner beserker rage. That animalistic side of him gives him power and strength but it also causes damage, loss and pain. And with the immortality, everyone he loves dies — everyone who has ever meant anything to him has passed on. What sort of life is that?

How important were the scenes with Famke Janssen?

Very important and they became even more important as we shot the film. There’s even more in the script that we shot because it dawned on us that if you want to understand Wolverine — it takes place just after X-Men 3. He kills Dark Phoenix, the love of his life, Jean Grey, he kills her and credits roll. You don’t have time to examine that so seeing that interaction was really nice in terms of understanding him and what haunts him most. It became bigger and bigger as we shot.

How did you enjoy starring with so many female characters around you?

Apart from the obvious, it was great that we got to explore that because I always kept saying, ‘look we have the Jean Grey storyline, but one of the great things from the comic book was that Wolverine has dated every mutant that has ever been written, because that is his saving grace, and his Achilles heel, both at once. And it is a great way to really understand him because on one side he never wants to get involved. He is a very interior, loner type of character. It is not going to play poker with the boys that will get him involved. It is women. So in this movie we have four meaningful roles for women. They are all very different archetypes as well and that made for an interesting difference from the last movie. There was so much testosterone; it was overwhelming, so this was kind of fantastic.

This is a film about immortality. Do you think that art and making movies in some ways immortalises you?

No. Everything passes. Trust me. Everything passes at some point. If you are in a movie that is still being watched 500 years from now, that is one amazing piece of work and it will be possible and that will actually happen. I don’t think of it as that. I never think of it. To me, the greatest high I have ever had as an actor is not the idea that I am in a movie that is going to be watched in 500 years. The greatest highs I have ever had have all been on stage, which is actually the briefest, fleeting of moments that just happen. Something magic happens that is beyond description, beyond words, when thousands of strangers in the audience and on stage get connected. You feel the whole audience and story and actor connect and hearts can melt. That’s a moment that is gone like that, it is unforgettable. That is what is timeless, really.

What do you like most about Japanese culture?

The food. It is my favourite cuisine. But I love so many things about their culture. I love their attention to detail, I love the bonds they have, not just to family but societal bonds, the respect they have and their humility. Working with these Japanese actors was very humbling. Hiroyuki Sanada has done like 60 movies and is a legend. We were shooting in Sydney and we had 200 extras on the set. I saw him on the set, one by one, at the end of a line shake hands with every extra and thank everyone at the end of each day. Then people say to me, ‘you are a nice guy!’ He takes it to another level. And it is from deep within and it’s genuine. He was sort of hiding. He didn’t want people to think he was doing it as a show. He just has that humility.

What can you reveal about the upcoming X-Men film?

There is not much, but I can tell you that we are shooting, that it is the biggest of all of them and that it is going incredibly well. The movie takes place in the future and past — so you get two actors playing the same role, except for mine because I am greedy! That will happen someday, I know, because big parts always outlive the actors that play them. If you do stick around to the end of the credits on The Wolverine, you are going to get a glimpse.

Do you think if Clint Eastwood were in his 40s now, he’d have a superhero franchise?

He sort of had one with Dirty Harry, didn’t he, though he was human? There weren’t many franchises around like that apart from James Bond. Probably. I remember shooting X-Men 1. It is fascinating how it’s changed. Bryan Singer would not allow one comic book on the set. He was terrified that actors would read them and come with over-the-top with two-dimensional performances. That was the perception of what comic books are, though X-Men is not like that at all. It is sophisticated in its themes and political in what it is trying to say. But that’s what Bryan worried about back then, so it is a very different world now. There was no genre when the first X-Men was made and you have to give credit to Bryan and to [20th Century] Fox for taking that risk.

Have you seen any discernible difference in Bryan Singer when making Days of Future Past?

All of us are different but essentially I see in him all that brilliance and confidence and then some. It seems to me that he has made a lot of different movies. He has reached among the fan base a kind of iconic status because of what he has created. I think he is really enjoying the challenge of this film. I know it is a big challenge and he doesn’t take it lightly. He really is absolutely delivering. I think that this going to be right up there.

Did he allow comic books on set this time?

Yes. He is not so worried about that any more.

It took a while for The Wolverine to settle on a director and script, with Darren Aronofsky attached at one point. Did that affect you at all?

Darren was on it for like six months and then we had to find a new director. The script we have now is pretty much what Darren was going to make. It wasn’t that different. He had a couple of great ideas including the title. He said he would only do it if it were called The Wolverine. And the studio said that was a great idea. I told him, ‘we are nicking that idea!’ There are a couple more ideas we nicked. I am pretty sure if I remember rightly that whole beginning in Nagasaki was his idea. There was a scene in the past, in the original script where Logan met a fire-fighter. They actually met in a pit. They were both trapped and they sort of fought each other but I think this was a much stronger, very iconic opening and I am pretty sure, if I remember rightly, that was Darren’s idea. Until we had Jim on board it was more difficult.

How do you keep your own rage and frustration under control?

I think that playing Wolverine gets a hell of a lot of it out! I can’t remember the last time I felt that kind of rage. Obviously, when I was younger, 13 or 14, I felt it all the time. Basically, every time I played rugby I felt it. I was much angrier as a kid, like most of us, but I don’t feel it much now. That’s why kids actually relate to X-Men and Wolverine and things like that because they feel unheard, misunderstood, they have no power, everyone is telling them what to do; they’re body is changing, their hormones are flying around and they don’t understand it all. That often comes out as rage.

So who did you relate to when you were growing up?

For me, growing up it was Dirty Harry and Mad Max. To be honest, they’re very Wolverine-like archetypes. Indiana Jones was my hero if I was thinking about a character I would like to play. I loved those kinds of characters.

The Wolverine is available on DVD and Blu-ray 2D and 3D from November 18.