Few actors get the opportunity that Hugh Jackman was afforded back in 2000’s X-Men, when a controversial (from the fans’ perspective) casting decision landed the then-largely unknown Australian actor the prime role of Wolverine. Over the course of nine films, Jackman has covered nearly every aspect of this character, wholly inhabiting the role to the point that the name “Wolverine” is now synonymous with Hugh Jackman. This all culminated with this spring’s Logan, Jackman’s final go-around as the character and his most ambitious turn yet. Working with director James Mangold, they crafted an unflinching, R-rated, Western-tinged drama about mortality, regret, and family all under the guise of a “superhero movie.” Audiences and critics responded warmly, and you really couldn’t have asked for a better send-off.

With Logan now available on Digital HD and hitting Blu-ray and DVD on May 23rd, I recently got the chance to chat with Jackman about the film—spoilers and all. During the course of the conversation we discussed the initial story idea that subsequently evolved into Logan, whether Logan dying was always part of the plan, and ideas that didn’t make it into the final Wolverine movie. We also discussed Jackman’s cameo in X-Men: Apocalypse, his thoughts on an eventual reboot of the character—and how Dafne Keene’s X-23 is really the best route there—and what most surprised him about the audience reaction to Logan. It was a wide-ranging and refreshingly candid conversation, and I’m thankful Jackman took the time to dig back into talking about this movie one last time. He put so much energy and passion into this character that it’s great to see him get to ride off into the sunset on such a high note.

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Check out the full conversation below. 

COLLIDER: Congrats on the movie, it’s fantastic. I kind of wanted to jump in and kind of ask, you said that you had a specific idea in mind for a final Wolverine movie for a while now. What was that initial story nugget that you’d been holding onto that expanded into Logan?

HUGH JACKMAN: Jim Mangold had mentioned to me not long after we did The Wolverine, the idea of Charles, the most powerful brain on the planet, what happens when that goes awry, and then them being on the run. So that was Jim, and he started with that. And I was constantly seeing The Wrestler, Unforgiven, that kind of tone. I really was interested in things like – I did a voice memo way back when and sent it to Jim two or three years ago and I said I’m more interested in keeping the camera rolling in the minute after a fight, not just the fight itself. And what is the effect on someone like Logan, from this lifetime of battling and the adrenaline and what happens. I really wanted to get inside that character I suppose, and really just explore it in a deeper way than we had before. I didn’t want it to feel like a victory lap or a final chapter, I wanted it to feel fresh and new and reveal things we hadn’t seen before. 

Well I think you nailed it, and one of the interesting things about Logan is by going that route and going all out, making this the final one, now everyone wants to see more because this is so fresh and different.

JACKMAN: I must admit, before doing this one, I was like, this is it. This is the only idea I have, I don’t know what else to do, to do it any other way. And then when I saw this, I was like “Oh, this does feel fresh.” [Laughs] But all good things come to an end, man.

When you and James Mangold signed on to return after The Wolverine, did you always plan on having Logan die or was that something that sort of arose as you were developing it?

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Image via 20th Century Fox

JACKMAN: No, it was talked about from the beginning. But I was personally, and Jim felt the same way, that we wanted the ending to be earned and be poignant and powerful. It was more powerful than I even thought when I read it on the page. I love the bit that Jim wrote, the part about the cross becoming the “X”, but somehow that moment on film was so powerful. I can’t think of any other way to finish it. But for me, one of the big influences was Unforgiven, and what makes that so powerful is that he doesn’t die, that he’s now in some kind of purgatory. That having done this heroic thing, he’s also now damned. And to see him walk out, and everyone with guns but they just don’t shoot him. That was more powerful than having him die. So I was always just open to whatever the ending would bring us.

I wanted to talk about that death scene for just a minute. James has confirmed that shot of Logan holding Laura’s hand, which is crushing, is straight from Yukio’s premonition in The Wolverine. How did that connection come about?

JACKMAN: That’s just Jim. He’s just brilliant in so many subtle ways. I’m so glad we’ve been able to discover all the things he thought about. He comes up with some really radical, out of the box ideas and colors it in such subtle ways. I remember when he rang me, the script was already written when he came up with the meta aspect of the comic books existing, and I was like, “Wow, that’s an interesting idea, that’s potentially dangerous, is it going to take people out of the emotion of the story? Is it too much?” I had a lot of questions. And Jim just ended up being right on all of them, honestly.

I mean, you guys signed up to make this thing in 2013, so this has been in development for quite a long time, and you’ve been candid in saying that there were a few heated discussions along the way due to your passion for really nailing this one. What were some of the biggest points of contention?

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Image via 20th Century Fox

JACKMAN: I was very skeptical of having X-24 being played by me. I understood what it represented and thematically the idea of battling himself, which of course is right at the core of this character that we never fully got to, so I kind of loved the externalization of that. But I also know that myself as an actor and fans of Wolverine come up to me in the street every day and go, “We wanna see that full berserker animalistic crazy off-the-wall Wolverine,” right? That we don’t feel we’ve fully seen it, so I was like, “Jim if we introduced halfway or near the end of the movie that full berserker animalistic crazy Wolverine and he’s somehow fighting our hero, audiences won’t know what to feel.” And I remember him saying, “Trust me, trust me, trust me.” And I was a bit of a pain in the ass on that one, I was like, “I’m just not sure. Let’s keep exploring it and exploring it.” When I saw the movie it’s just clear, for some reason I think because he skewers Patrick Stewart in that moment the audience just sort of hates him. We did some subtle things, I changed the bridge of my nose, I wore contacts—I just wanted him to look a little different from myself. And I think by that point we’d created already the Wolverine that people wanted to see. So anyway, that was one of my examples of being wrong.

Well it’s certainly risky, when he first comes up on screen, it’s like “Oh, this could go really well or really bad,” and you guys pulled it off. How tough was it to keep that a secret, because you guys had Boyd Holbrook in the marketing, and he’s fantastic in the movie, as the main antagonist. But no one’s expecting X-24 to be kind of his downfall.

JACKMAN: Yeah actually now that I think about it, I mean there’s a lot of secrecy around these things and everyone tries to protect it, but it’s kind of actually amazing. I suppose that when we were shooting it, I was shooting both parts so I played both, so if I turn up on set everyone just knows I’m playing that. That’s a good point, I’ve gotta give props to the crew and the cast, no one spilled the beans. I hadn’t thought about it until just now. But it’s fun being in screenings and watching people gasp. They do not see it coming.

I’m still shocked, that was kept under wraps so well. I know there were also discussions of bringing Liev Schreiber back as Sabretooth, did that ever get to the script stage or was that idea jettisoned beforehand? 

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Image via 20th Century Fox

JACKMAN: Jim and I did talk about it. For my money, he was the best thing in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I thought Ryan made a lot out of his bit for it. I was always like ‘That would be so cool’ and the original script for X-Men Origins was a much smaller movie. We were sort of toying with the idea, in a way, of what we ended up doing with Logan—it was going to be a movie about these two brothers. Then different circumstances came in and the movie all of a sudden became twice the size, we had a big release date, and it was all of that. So that never happened, and I had harbored that all along and of course Jim and I worked with Liev on Kate & Leopold, so we did talk about it it was just “How the hell do we do it?”— Oh no there was a script stage. There was a point where—that’s right. Um, I don’t know if I should be saying this. Oh what the hell. There was a story point where they go to Vegas, you know how they go to the Oklahoma casino? Where they go there and at this point Sabretooth is running like a major casino and really, really wealthy, and really kind of runs a town, and sort of respectable in a way but is still himself. That idea was thrown around, I forgot about that. But I always loved, there were a couple of things I couldn’t work out how to do. Fans always say, ‘When are we gonna see you in the blue and yellow spandex? We’ve gotta see that shot!’ We tried a little bit in The Wolverine, it didn’t happen—on that plane at the end he opens up a box and there’s the suit, I think that ended up getting cut. So the suit was one thing but we just couldn’t work out how to do it, so if anyone can work that out you go for it. The other idea that I always loved was the idea in the comics that every year on Logan’s birthday, his brother comes and beats the crap out of him. I just thought that was such a cool very fun idea and very in keeping to those characters. His birthday present was just a beating and that’s the only time he sees him (laughs). I kept saying, “Jim can we put that in?” and he goes “Eh this is not that movie.” But anyway.

I also wanted to ask about your X-Men: Apocalypse cameo. Now knowing that you were about to embark on this extremely emotional and dramatic and kind of dark final arc for Wolverine, did you have any hesitation about bringing to the screen yet another chapter of the character’s story in that movie?

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Image via 20th Century Fox

JACKMAN: Yeah, I did. And you know, Bryan Singer rang me and it was very important to him to feel in his journey that things were wrapping up. That he wanted to – and you know, I wouldn’t have this role if it wasn’t for him. I just said “Mate, I’m in. Whatever.” I didn’t read the script. I didn’t know the story, I did it because it was really important to Bryan and as a friend and a collaborator, I was like, “I’m in.” And when he told me the idea, I was like, “Well, that’s cool. We haven’t seen that part, that’d be fun to get out there.” My trepidation was minor.

The X-Men property is extremely valuable to Fox, and they’re embarking on all of these other chapters now, and the odds are in the future Wolverine will be rebooted with a different actor. As a fan of the character and the franchise, arguably maybe the expert on the character, what would you like to see out of that if and when it happens?

JACKMAN: I think one thing we’ve learned: when X-Men started, it was pretty revolutionary. Like the comic book itself, I think there was an element of breaking conventions, of opening up in the concentration camp with a character, was not what people expected. I think X-Men has always been about asking questions, challenging norms and asking what’s going on. I’m not saying we’ve done that always, but I definitely think the spirit of Logan is in a way a reboot of that desire to keep taking risks and to ask more difficult questions, and to go deeper within the characters. In an irreverent way, it’s exactly what Deadpool did too. I think it’s endemic to the character. I think for me, it would make sense to go younger with Logan. I think it would be very difficult – however, there’s a female 11-year-old who could absolutely frickin’ nail it, for my money. 

She is fantastic. She’s so good.

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Image via 20th Century Fox

JACKMAN: So good. I was 30 when I got the part, so I think it would be wide open to interpretation. I think it could be anything. You could go any color, any race, anything. If you look at all the drawings and all the different interpretations from different artists over the years, I think it’s completely open. I think audiences will buy it.

You put so much blood and sweat and tears into Logan, and it really shows. And everyone, the response was so overwhelmingly positive. Once it did hit theaters after all these conversations and battles and passions, was there anything in the audience response you found particularly surprising?

JACKMAN: Yeah, it’s been very heartening to me. I’m just talking about day-to-day, people in the street, doormen in buildings, things like that. Like, that’s where you get your real reviews. When people stop you, there’s a deep sense of gratitude and people love that character and that feeling that we’ve finally realized what’s been in their hearts and in their minds, for however long they’ve been reading or watching the movies, and that’s really satisfying to me. I knew that I’d never fully realized what I felt in my heart and my mind either, so when I saw this movie, I cried at that last scene of the cross becoming an “X”, because I thought, “Yeah, that’s the scene. That’s the character to me.” I felt really relieved that we’d achieved it, but when people stop me in the street, and I can see they want to tell me more than they want the selfie, they want to tell me what it means to them, and that means a lot to me.

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Image via 20th Century Fox