Seventeen years is a long time to spend with anyone—especially a hard-drinking rageaholic with Adamantium claws and a penchant for getting wrapped up in apocalypse-grade chaos. Contentious though his company may be, Hugh Jackman has managed almost two decades side by side with the Wolverine, allowing us the same luxury all the while.
Things have changed quite a bit since we were first introduced to Jackman’s take on the death-proof character back in Bryan Singer’s X-Men in 2000. Over the years, we’ve seen him fall in love, combat his own demons, travel through time, endure the elements of a Japanese POW camp, beat up Ryan Reynolds, and, in his latest entry, James Mangold’s Logan, contend with that very all-consuming legacy. Wolverine’s surrogate dad Charles Xavier, as immortalized by Patrick Stewart, has enjoyed no less the grandeur. Though Stewart has split duties with James McAvoy across the X-Men movie franchise, it is the elder actor whom we’ll always think of foremost when we consider the character’s cinematic stature.
As important as these characters may be to us, we’ve got to imagine that they hold all the more significant a place in the hearts of each of the men charged with bringing them to life on the big screen. Our own Dan Casey wanted to know just how the great Jackman and Stewart felt about saying goodbye to the Wolverine and Prof. X in Logan, not to mention how it felt to say hello to them in the first place. In the video above, Dan talks with the stars about their first days with the characters on the set of X-Men over 17 years ago, and their very last days with them at the wrap of this year’s Logan.
Fair warning: If these characters have meant anything at all to you—and we imagine they have—you’re bound to get a little misty here. Watch above and share your own feelings about what might just be the very ending of Logan’s and Charles Xavier’s stories as we know them.
Featured Image: 20th Century Fox
