Hugh Jackman talks 'Wolverine' Blu-ray, 'Days of Future Past' teases

Hugh Jackman is coming up on 15 years — and a possible eighth film — playing macho mutant Logan, a.k.a. The Wolverine in the X-Men films. But, the actor told EW, he couldn’t be happier about it: “I kind of am enjoying him more than ever.” Given the $414 million global box office take of this summer’s The Wolverine, fans would tend to agree.

Though there are still four long, wintry months between now and the May release of X-Men: Days of Future Past, Jackman says there’s plenty to hold over X-men obsessives in The Wolverine‘s at-home release (out in Digital HD™ now, and hitting stores Dec. 3 with a 4 Disc Unleashed Extended Edition Blu-ray and 2 Disc Blu-ray), which just so happens to include Days teases curated by director Bryan Singer himself. Read on…

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So, the Blu-ray is called “The Wolverine Unleashed.” Is there anything particularly wild or unleashed you want to reveal?

HUGH JACKMAN: It just feels very weird talking about “Unleashed” — I’m literally sitting here in my tracksuit pants this morning and, not having had a shower, it feels like [I’m the one who’s unleashed] [laughs]. I think you should get the behind-the-scenes of the interview. I’m almost wearing my slippers and dressing gown. I really haven’t seen the DVD yet, but I do know there are some cool things. I spoke to Bryan Singer, and he’s doing some cool stuff, giving some behind-the-scenes stuff of Days of Future Past, which is great for X-Men fans. You get behind-the-scenes stuff.

Did you participate in any voiceovers?

I did not do a voiceover. They didn’t ask me. Maybe there’s a reason why [laughs] — I talk too much. I give away too many secrets.

Is there a scene or sequence cut from the film that you’re most excited for fans to see?

The ice village fight, which was always really cool, we shot that for a long time… but in the end, story-wise, we were ramping up to that finale and the climax to the movie, so we had to cut so much of it. I remember sitting there with my stunt double, and he was, like, “What? I almost killed myself for this thing!” Both of us actually did some really hairy stuff. There’s some really cool stuff there where I’m fighting, like, 30 or 40 ninjas and motorbikes and really cool, innovative stuff that people haven’t seen before. You’re [also] going to get to see a lot of the making of that bullet train sequence, which took us about three weeks to shoot that minute and a half. I had some pretty hairy accidents on that, and someone said, “I want to put that on the DVD!”

I know that the story that inspired The Wolverine, which was written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Frank Miller, is one of your favorites. Since there’s a sequel in the works, do you have any other Wolverine stories that you might like to inspire future movies?

I did love the Japanese saga — it was one of the first ones I read while making [the first] X-Men, actually. I remember thinking, “This would make a great movie.” … It’s interesting because it’s very rare, even with the Japanese saga, to make [a single story] into a film. You end up using one as a basis, then you’ll draw really cool things from others. To make a movie, obviously you need to do more than just one comic. There are some really cool ideas that I’m dying to tell you, but that would be giving away a secret that is not even formed yet, you know what I mean?

You’ve been playing this character for nearly 15 years now. How has he changed, and where do you see him going?

I kind of am enjoying him more than ever. To be frank with you, I’m enjoying film work more than ever. I feel more and more comfortable. I was always a theater person, it took me a while to get used to the film atmosphere. I love it now. That and also being older helps playing Wolverine. He’s 200 or 300 years old — no one really knows — and he’s sort of world-weary. I’ll admit the actual working out gets harder and harder. But I think there’s something tragically heroic about him; he is the tragic hero. I don’t think you’ll ever see Wolverine very happy and laughing and [saying], “Oh, life is good!” There’s always some tragedy around him.

So he’s not going to be rocking the gold lamé pants from The Boy from Oz any time soon?

You never know.