comics2film wrote:In part one of the press X-Men 2 conference, Comics2Film heard from half of the panel that attended. Today we explore the comments made by Hugh Jackman (Wolverine), Halle Berry (Storm), Famke Janssen (Dr. Jean Grey), James Marsden (Cyclops), Alan Cumming (Nightcrawler), Anna Paquin (Rogue), and Shawn Ashmore (Bobby/Iceman).
Jackman attended the conference in full Wolverine hair and make up, which was extremely cool to behold. He had been filming that morning, and was scheduled to recommence later that day. Jackman started off the press conference with a bang fielding a question about his kissing Jean Grey in the film's trailer. "It's mostly Wolverine trying to keep her at bay, but she's so hot for him all the time. (laughs)"
Janssen cut in with "Cyclops is sitting right next to me!", but Jackman got the last word by commenting "the love triangle, I suppose, hots up. And I've got somebody kicking me in the shins (Director Bryan Singer) right now, so I can't talk about it."
Jackman was asked about how, after being the first film's "breakout star," he would portray Wolverine in the sequel. His reply was "With the first film a lot of the storyline did in a way focus on Wolverine and Rogue, but it was more a plot choice because they're ideal mutants to take you into the mutant world and yet to keep as outsider (s). While he was onscreen a lot, you get well introduced to the character, who he was, and then he becomes essentially part of that world-saving plot we had."
Going further into detail Jackman added "In this film, his personal demons are really investigated. By the end of this movie, he's going to track down his part, which is very much what this movie is about. If he doesn't come to a complete resolution, it's pretty damned close. He's sort of, in a way, emotionally and with the return of nightmares and things like that, at a crisis point. It's more internal in a way. You get a more internal look at the character, and that's been really fun to play with."
Jackman concluded by saying "As we alluded to before, there's a few relationships that hot up a little, and I'm just loving playing the character again. I really love this character. And for all the characters in a movie such as this, if you want to call it an action movie and a comic book movie, all the characters seem to have a dimension beyond what you would expect."
Oscar winning Actress Halle Berry reprises her role as Storm in X-Men 2. When asked about if she had brought the Oscar for show and tell, Jackman coyly pointed under the table, bringing much mirthful laughter to the audience and panel. Asked about if the Oscar had changed her perception and approach, Berry said "They're (the cast) just getting sick of the Oscar. Can't you tell how sick of it they are? No, I didn't bring it, and no, nothing has changed. Honestly no, nothing at least as far as this production goes."
Berry did mention that "one of the good things about coming back to this (the sequel), with Oscar in hand, is that we were sort of like...when you start a movie you spend the first month getting to know everybody and just when you get to know everybody the experience is over, although this wasn't the case with the first X-Men, that was six months. But normally when you are just finding that groove and you're all starting to gel, then it's time to stop. We got a chance to reconvene and pick up where we left off. So that's been a really important part of the experience for me."
At the press conference, Berry was sporting her white/platinum Storm wig, but it was a shorter, more layered style then the first movie. I was compelled to ask if along with the hair change there what kind of character progression she had experienced. Berry replied "I think everybody's happy with the hair change. There was a really big, big discussion about the hair because I know Bryan (Singer) and Lauren Schuler-Donner, our producer, really wanted to get it right because they felt it was something that desperately needed to be changed from the first movie. So hopefully everybody will like it better."
Berry added "I think my character this time around you get to know a little better about who Storm is. She definitely is allowed to present a point of view this time that I didn't get to present last time. Sort of what her emotional life is like, you really get a taste of that this time. I think there is more evolution." As a side note, from comments made on the set by various people, it sounds like Storm's role will expand and like in the comic, she will be a focus as leader of the X-Men.
Berry was asked about filming this time in Vancouver versus Toronto, where the first film was done, and if it was easier because of the proximity to Los Angeles. Berry replied "It has for me, because out of the cast members, I think I'm always the one who is jetting out of here to catch that last flight ... that makes it easy because it's only a two hour flight. I feel a lot closer to home. I did feel really far away last time."
She also rejoined that "I also grew up going to Toronto a lot, living in Cleveland, so that was like no big whoop. This is a big whoop here, I just like it."
Famke Janssen, who portrays Jean Grey in the film, was also sporting a shorter, more layered hair cut, and try as I might, I couldn't find any red tint in it. When asked what was going on with Jean in the sequel, her reply was "She got a haircut (laughs). Very important. I'm sure you saw that in the trailer. It's basically kind of the things we touched upon in the first movie with the love triangle, and she has some issues with her powers that we kind of explore in the second one." I am wondering if this hints at a cameo from the Phoenix?
James Marsden returns as Cyclops in the sequel. He was asked about how it was to re-explore the character, and his response was "I think a lot of the first one was devoted to explaining to the audience, the cinema-goers, who the X-Men were, what they were capable of, and what their story was. A good percentage of the movie was exposition, explaining the characters."
"I think we've gotten that out of the way now. So we can see these characters kind of spring into action and not have to worry about if we're going to know who they are and what the situation is. Now that we've established that in the first film, I think we can have some fun" Marsden added.
Alan Cumming is one of the newcomers to the X-Men franchise, making his debut in the sequel as Nightcrawler. When asked if he had done any research, Cumming answered "I've read some comics. It's quite impressive, actually because not only am I playing sort of a blue mutant with all these odd physical things, but also everyone in the world apart from me seems to have some idea about how the character should look or read, so there's been a little pressure. So yeah, I read some comics and listened to some people. It's kind of hard because halfway through the film, I realized that Mystique is my mother. It's an ongoing learning curve."
Cumming was also asked how he gets prepared to be Nightcrawler. His reply was "Mentally it's very difficult. I have to get up very early and I have some lovely, lovely makeup people that do it. You just have to get into a zone where you don't mind grown (people) poking at your face for four hours and spraying you with stuff. Sometimes I watch films in the mirror, which is quite hard if they're subtitled (laughs)."
He also felt he had made the job harder in a way. "I have these tattoos and I rue the day that I was the one who actually said 'Yeah, let's go with the tattoos. They're really great.' They take a lot more time to get stuck on. I'm hoping that maybe if there's a sequel there will be some sort of mutant accident that's taken place and Nightcrawler will have no tattoos and be white. The technology in this film is quite incredible with the effects and I thought maybe the next time I could do the film as me and they could put the makeup on afterwards."
Cumming had some thoughts about contact lens after filming as well. His comment was "There's this thing with people who (wore) contact lenses in the first film. There's sort of a thing where you pay your dues. Halle and Rebecca don't wear contacts any more. I noticed afterwards that I am wearing contact lenses. It must be kind of rites of passage that you go through. Maybe next time I'll have no contact lenses."
When asked about filming the tail, Cumming had this revealing tidbit to share. "Sometimes I'm wearing it and sometimes I'm not, because sometimes it's done afterwards. There's tails of various consistencies of boinginess. If I don't have the full tail, I have this stub thing with dots on it for special effects people to do things with afterwards. And that's quite popular with the ladies (laughs) and gentleman as well. And myself."
Returning after a small role as Bobby Drake/Iceman in the first into an increased presence in X-Men 2 is Shawn Ashmore. Last season on Smallville, Ashmore had a breakthrough guest appearance as a fellow student and nemesis of Clark's. When asked about what is in store for Bobby in the sequel, Ashmore said "Obviously, I can't get into too much detail, but basically, Bobby gets brought into the fold a little bit. Obviously, he's still a student at the school, but I think mainly his role in the film is to kind of be brought in and join the group and kind of become a more important part of the whole adventure that happens."
Rounding out the panel was returning cast member Anna Paquin, who plays the character Rogue. Paquin was asked if she was able to "kick some ass" in this film and her reply was a bit tentative, as Director Bryan Singer was only a few seats away. She did reveal that "clearly my character has to go from being sort of frightened of everyone she encounters and has to evolve in some way. So, yeah, in a lot of ways I do get to do a lot more stuff then I did in the last movie, but I'm not really sure how much I can say about that without getting into trouble."
Paquin, who was sporting the trademark Rogue white stripe in her hair, really looked the part at the press conference. She was asked to explain the evolution of the character for this film, and she was less tentative the second time around. "I think what's nice and interesting about the second movie that Rogue is in is that she's left behind a lot of the shy, timid sort of shutting everyone else out because she's been accepted into a group where she is not an outsider or going to be treated differently or poorly because of her mutant abilities, and so she is allowed to grow more and just get to do more stuff and be more part of the action."
Paquin added an interesting point saying Rogue "doesn't need to be rescued. She's not the damsel in distress anymore, so it's kind of fun and there's a lot more actiony kind of stuff that I get to do-or stunts-which is fun. It's really great, actually, not having to be rescued for the whole movie."
After answering questions for an hour, the cast made their way out of the press area to resume filming. Some answers given were revealing, some less so, but we left feeling we had gleaned a few kernels of information, probably just enough to make the film even more mysterious.