X-ploring the X-men

X-Ploring the X-Men
Dateline: 7/17/00

To most comic book collectors, Stan Lee is an icon. He has been credited with helping create such comic book heroes as The Incredible Hulk, The Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Silver Surfer and Dr. Strange. By far he has had more influence in the comic book industry than anyone in its history, and he helped build Marvel Comics into the well-respected company it is today. Back in 1963, Lee would create one of his most popular comic book series; X-Men, the chronicles of mutant humans with special powers who help fight for the world that fears them. The series grew to become the most popular of the 1990's and currently sells over 13 million copies per year all over the world.

It took over 37 years and a team of 400 craftsmen, artisans, filmmakers and actors to bring Lee's comic book creation to the movie screen in a live action form. Director Bryan Singer has helmed Twentieth Century Fox's live-action adaptation. Advance buzz on the film couldn't be more positive, which has studio execs over at Fox feeling lucky, for when the film is released in theaters, it will face its toughest critics-- the millions of comic book fans that have been reading the X-Men for decades.

Professor Charles Xavier, the world's most powerful telepath, brings the X-Men, the group of genetic mutants with amazing abilities, together in the comic book and the movie. At the X-Men academy, he trains mutant children, and even adults, to use their powers in a more efficient and effective manner. Most of all, he teaches them to use their powers in the ongoing struggle for the mutant minority to co-exist with the human majority. Set in the near future, a United States Senator, Robert Kelly has put legislation before congress that would require every mutant to register with the government. What he doesn't realize is that one particular mutant, Magneto, a master of magnetism, is determined to stop him at any cost. Emotionally scarred by his own traumatic childhood during the Holocaust, Magneto believes that mutants are superior to the human race and along with a band of mutant followers that believes his cause to be just, they set out to transform the world's leaders into mutants themselves. It is up to Storm, Cyclops, Rogue, Wolverine and Jean Grey, Xavier's top X-Men, to stop Magneto and save the world.

After a gaggle of screenwriters tried to churn out a script for a handful of ever-changing directors, 34 year old filmmaker Bryan Singer was handed the task to helm the picture. The only problem was that he was not only born after the creation of the X-Men comic book series, but also, he had never read the X-Men. Thus, his first step was to sit down with Stan Lee. "It was very inspirational," Singer recalls. "We talked about taking the universe of the X-Men very seriously, and what these mutants meant to him, and how he initiated and co-created the universe back in '63, and why. His general enthusiasm was more inspirational. It wasn't very specific."
When Singer got involved with the film, he turned to the screenplay hoping to keep the tone and feel Lee brought to the comic book series intact. "The backbone of the 'X-Men' universe has always been the sense of outcast, searching for a place to belong, and that theme is a very universal one," says Singer. "Since 1963, since issue one, there have always been mutants. It's always been Xavier, Magneto, and other evil mutants, existing in world in the not so distant future. But that's been the template for the comic, which has spawned about fifteen or twenty spin offs of books that have sold about four hundred million copies. So, this is the biggest, most expanded comic universe in the world, and I built on that framework."

What intrigued actor Bruce Davison to take on the role of Senator Kelly were the unique themes that Singer kept from Lee's comic books. "I think that the beauty of X-Men from the beginning is that there isn't really an evil character," he proclaims. "There are evil motivations behind real characters. Magneto has a damn good reason for hating the human race, and I think that Senator Kelly's fears are real. I think that the line between good and evil for Senator Kelly is his quest for power."

Singer knew the film was going to be big both in scale and budget (which was a reported $75 million). For Twentieth Century Fox, the film was set up to be one of their tent pole films with the potential to spawn a number of sequels. Yet, Singer only wanted to think of X-Men as a film which needed to tell a story without all the pressure of having to build a franchise for a studio. "It feels as though it's introductory or that it's built for expansion," Singer muses about his recently completed film. "That's the essence of what comic books have always been. They're episodic in that they introduce new characters, and could go on, and will go on, and that's what is exciting and wonderful about them. You try to embrace that notion, but take it seriously like a film. You tell a story, and introduce the characters to both fans and non-fans alike."

The first big challenge Singer faced after meeting with Lee was helping determine which of the dozens of mutant characters from the comic books would make it into the film. As the director explains, "It was after reading so many of the books, and the graphic novels, looking at the art, watching the animated series, speaking with fans, and speaking with Stan Lee I just made a judgment on which mutants I thought I would like to see in a first movie, an introductory movie which would best exemplify the mutant phenomena, the condition, the duality, the blessing and the curse of being one of these characters, one of these creatures and I chose these. There were a couple that I wanted in the picture, but for the pure sake of schedule and budget, I just couldn't make it work. I had to leave some of my favorites in this series for other films."

Though more of an ensemble film, Singer chose to feature John Logan, a.k.a. Wolverine; a fighting machine who possess incredible healing powers and retractable metallic claws which spring from his fists as he fights with animal ferocity. Initially, Singer cast Dougray Scott, though after three days of filming it became apparent that the actor's schedule would not work for X-Men's lengthy shoot. Instead, Singer turned to Hugh Jackman, who was then appearing in a theatrical revival of Oklahoma! and a virtual unknown. "I think that I'm on record as one of the longest screen tests in history," laughs Jackman in telling how he landed the role. "I first put tape down in January 1999, and Bryan cast me in October. I think that I pretty much met everyone apart from Rupert Murdoch along the way, and I think that Bryan was at the end of the road, and I remember doing a test up in Toronto. I was pretty cheap as far actors go. So, all those things worked in my favor."
Even though Singer had seen Jackman's tapes, he initially thought the actor wasn't right for the role and it took meeting him in person for the director to realize he had found his Wolverine. "I saw him in the lobby of the hotel, and we did a screen test with Anna, just there in the lobby of the building that we were shooting in," Singer recalled. "He was in the middle of doing his reading, and the first person who knew that Hugh Jackman was going to play Wolverine was a security guard who walked up to me. I don't even think that he knew that I was the director. He walked up to me and he said, 'Hey, is that the guy that they got to play Wolverine?' I just thought for a long moment, and I said, 'Yes' and he said, 'Cool, good choice.' I offered Hugh the role on the spot, which I haven't ever done. You usually think about it, and then you call, or you call an agent. This is the first time that I've offered an actor a role on the spot since I offered Kevin Spacey The Usual Suspects."

Ultimately, Singer thinks Jackman was heaven-sent and claims the actor adapted to the role beautifully. Shortly after Jackman was hired, a joke surfaced; journalists and crewmembers began calling him "Hugh Who?" Indeed Singer thinks the Australian born actor is so talented that he won't be an "unknown" for long. "It's kind of better than when I was in school," Jackman says of his new nickname. "When I was in school it 'Hugh the Pooh' and 'Hugh the Kangaroo'. So, 'Hugh who' is a little nicer. It's not such a bad thing when you're playing an icon like Wolverine. It's better to be someone that no one knows because then they don't know what to expect. I don't mind a little bit of anonymity."

Unlike Jackman, fans of the comic book series were happy to see that Singer cast the only person they could have ever envisioned in the role of Professor Xavier, the wheelchair bound mentor of the X-Men who has unparalleled powers of telepathy. Stewart had no clue what the X-Men were and had never heard of the comic book until his children informed him. "They actually said that this could be bigger than Star Trek," Stewart jokes, referring to the science fiction television and film series in which he previously starred. "My son was an X-Men fanatic. So, I turned to him for most of my early information."

Stewart was a little weary of playing such a beloved character in the film adaptation of X-Men. As well, he feared that he might be typecast into science fiction roles, having already done a great deal of work in the genre. "The nature of this story in this movie, particularly that he is a modern man in a modern context, in a Twentieth Century context . . . I didn't feel that I was in a comic book movie," he confesses. "I was in a real modern movie with serious themes, and it's so separate from the tone and quality of Star Trek: The Next Generation that I no longer feel any kind of conflict at all, or any unease about this. I'm just proud of the work."
One of the most popular characters Singer left in the film was Storm, who can control and manipulate any form of weather. The director selected actress Halle Berry to play the character, and like her co-stars, she had was unfamiliar with the X-Men comic books. "I think that ultimately, that may have worked out to my advantage because I found out later that most of the characters had gone through so many changes over almost the last forty years. I think that probably just would have been confusing," Berry says of taking on her role doing a bare minimum of research. "I think that I would have felt very daunted trying to put all the aspects of who she longs to be in one two hour movie. I did read up a little bit on who Storm was and her history. Bryan provided us with that, and he was always making sure that we stayed true to who we were supposed to be."

Berry also felt a sense of responsibility, for her character is one of the few African-American super heroes portrayed in comic books, let alone the X-Men. "When I first met with Bryan Singer about the project, he happened to tell me that Storm was one of the most beloved characters," she says. "So, it was a lot of pressure to live up to that, but I think that it's very important because little black children need to be able to go see this movie and identify, and other children need to go and see that they are just the same as everyone else. Not only kids, but it would do a few grown ups a lot of good too, to get that same message. I think that it's very important that this community is represented, and in such a powerful and eloquent way."

Working alongside Magneto, who is played by Ian McKellen, is a monstrous giant with a deep growl and sharp fangs. His name is Victor Creed, a.k.a. Sabretooth, and Singer made a good choice when he cast Tyler Mane, a former professional wrestler. "I had seen the cartoon a little bit, but then when I went and started doing a little bit of research just to see what Sabretooth was, I realized just how big it was," Mane admits. "I found out that there was thirty eight years of history there, and that it's been changing and evolving ever since. When they transformed me into Sabretooth and I saw everyone's reaction to the costume . . . there were some little kids on the set one day, and they saw me, and they went running and screaming and crying. That kind of put my mind at ease."

"I spent eleven and a half years as a professional wrestler, and I played the bad guy," Mane explains how stepped into his character. "What I did was I took that mentality, I looked at the comic books, and seeing some of the actions that Sabretooth would do, I just transferred some of my wrestling background over to Sabretooth's actions, and it came quite naturally."

Also on Magneto's team is Toad, a far-jumping, near-sighted mutant with a twelve-foot tongue. Ray Park, who played Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace, got the opportunity to play the character in Singer's version of X-Men. "I didn't really know much about Toad when I met Bryan, and I knew a lot about X-Men because I used to watch the cartoon," says Park. "I wanted to find out more. I don't think that Bryan wanted that as much because there wasn't a lot there. There was a lot to expand on and create in the movie for Toad."
Rounding out Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants is Raven Darkholme, a.k.a. Mystique, a vixen who can transform herself into anything or anyone she sees. When not in another person's body, Mystique is covered in a blue scaly skin. For Rebecca Romjin-Stamos, the actress that plays the character in the film, putting on the make-up each day was a huge ordeal. "They just dipped me in a vat of blue paint. It took two minutes," the actress jokes sarcastically. "Actually, it was an eight hour make-up application every single day. It was over 120 prosthetics, and the rest was painted blue. Then I would work for ten or twelve hours, and it would take me two hours to take it all off, and I never lost my blue cast throughout the entire production. I mean, I had blue pores for months after we finished the movie!"

Romjin-Stamos tried some creative tactics in an attempt to avoid the make-up process each day. "I tried to get them to let me sleep in my costume a couple of times so that I wouldn't have to live through that horrible process over and over again, but they wouldn't let me do it," she exclaims before going on to tell how the process may have helped her get into character before showing up in front of the cameras. "Eight hours in the make-up chair turned me into an evil bitch."

Between takes and shot set-ups Romjin-Stamos was isolated from cast and crew so as not to disturb her make-up. "The special makeup people would whisk me away to a special little booth, and I really felt like I was on a different project than everyone else," she remembers. "I had no contact with anyone else the whole time. The only days that I really felt that I was working on the same movie as everyone else were on my days off when I would come to visit the set."

Romjin-Stamos wasn't the only person working on X-Men that had to deal with special visual effects for the first time. Singer himself had never dealt with such effects in the two movies he'd made previously. Luckily he had some expert help from some very special filmmakers. "The first thing to do is not to become encumbered by the action or the visual effects," he explained. "I did a lot of research with the visual effects houses and companies, and I spent a lot of time with my special effects supervisor talking about how we would achieve certain things. I visited the set of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace when they were shooting, and also, I was down on the set of Titanic. I looked at a lot of those visual effects and animatics for those two films. I spoke to those two filmmakers extensively about what and how they went about achieving the kinds of visual effects, compositing model work, character work, and all the things that they did. I got some valuable advice from those gentlemen. I created a storyboards and animatics which are sort of visual motion story boards using computers."
Yet the cast and filmmakers responsible for X-Men don't want audiences to think that their film is just another glorified special effects display. "I think that this movie is for anyone that has ever felt like an outcast, and I think that most people have at one point in their lives even if it was just for a little while," says Romjin-Stamos. "I mean, when I was a teenager, I was much taller and skinnier than all my friends, and I was really uncomfortable in my skin, and didn't want anything below my neck to even exist. Everyone feels like an outsider at some point. So, I think that everyone can relate to that."

This sentiment is echoed by Singer, who claims it was the reason he chose to make X-Men, "I think that everyone, every adolescent, everyone in their professional life feels that at one point or another, and wishes that they could go to a special place where they could be embraced for what they are and who they are, and learn to find a purpose for the life, and their society. I think that has lasted and propelled this universe beyond the framework of your average comic into a huge, wildly accessible world, and I think that's why it will be and is accessible to people like my mother who don't know a comic book from a hole in the ground, but she understands prejudice, she understands fear of the unknown."

Certainly, these are feelings and emotions experienced by actress Anna Paquin who plays Rogue, a teenage girl who can't touch anyone without sucking the life out of them and a member of the X-Men team. Growing up she says she, "felt different being born into a family with two blond sisters wit blue eyes, and then me being the only brunette. Then, as I started growing and growing and growing, it never seemed to stop, and all my girlfriends got up to about my waist at age twelve. I felt different then, and then I came to the United States, and I was the only Dutch person that I knew, and I felt different. So, I could really identify with that part, and it think that everyone can in that respect because we all feel different at times."

Actor James Marsden, who plays the character Cyclops, a mutant whose eyes emit a deadly laser beam capable of cutting through just about anything, remembers feeling a little out of place during his junior high school and high school days. "It's that awkward stage that you go through when you're basically coming into yourself, and that's when most of the mutations happen. It was definitely awkward for me," he says. "I grew up in Oklahoma, and I think weighed about 85 pounds in the eighth grade, and here were these corn fed boys. In Oklahoma, if you don't play sports, they basically throw you in the trash. So, I was a bit of an outsider. I was a bit of a social retard. I discovered a sense of humor, and the jocks, they like that. So, I was allowed to hang out with them, and still be in musicals.
Being a minority in the United States, Berry claims she has always felt like an outcast. "But I also share the sentiments of the X-Men that even though it appears to be, it's really what you do with it," states Berry, going on to touch, albeit briefly, on her recent stint in the headlines when she was involved in a hit and run auto accident. "That's sort of been my life experience, and as of lately, I've felt like one. Anytime that your life gets exploited to the degree that mine has been, you feel like a freak, and so, I've felt very much like a freak in the last, at least, five or six months of my life."

It was when Hugh Jackman first started acting that he appeared to be the outcast, at least to himself. "I remember feeling very much like that dunce in the class," he says laughing. "I looked around, and I wasn't smoking, I didn't have the obligatory leather jacket, and I didn't carry my angst on my shoulder."

Stewart too found that he could relate to his character's sense of being different from humanity. Even so, the actor learned to rise above what he felt set him apart from the crowd. "I grew up with what I experienced as the shame of poverty, and I left school when I was fifteen," Stewart recalls. "So, my education was minimal, and in my late teens when I went to acting school, I felt that background very acutely, but then, I also was made aware of what Martin Luther King described as the significant thing is the nature of your character, and that's what really counts. That helped me to change how I viewed myself, and it's the nature of people's characters that Xavier emphasizes in this movie."

When asked a similar question about whether he was an outcast in his youth, Singer began to laugh. "I was actually very athletic and popular and incredibly handsome," he says sarcastically. "I never felt like an outcast. Actually I had the privilege of being a nerd and a terrible student in high school. So, then I always felt like an outsider. Also moving into directing because there is only one director on a set. As much as you're surrounded by people, you also feel very isolated and alone at times, but I think that is a very universal thing. I think that's why X-Men has been so successful and popular."

Of course, that the storyline and each of the characters is rather fantastical helped youngsters (and even adults) become fans of the comic book series. "I'll take healing," exclaims Davison in stating which super power he would want. "I would be greedy, and I would want them all. I mean, all these mutants have their own special powers, and it aids them in so many ways. So, it would be hard to pick just one. I mean, I would be greedy and want them all."
While the actors may not walk away from X-Men with super powers, they do get an action figure molded after their characters. "It's very exciting," exclaims Marsden. "I was a huge fan of Star Wars growing up, and it's probably my number one influence in film, and it's the reason why I wanted to get into film. I used to have all the action figures. They're all gone and destroyed now, and I don't know what I did with them, but I wish I would have kept them. It's exciting, and it's bit surreal. I saw them, and I went to Toy R Us to purchase them myself because that's kind of part of the fun, buying your own action figure. I think that the scary thing is that nowadays, they really resemble you."

Stewart doesn't think his figure looks anything like him. "It doesn't look like me, it's a distorted looking face, and it's just really bad, and I know my action figures," says Stewart who has had an action figure made of him in the past for his work on Star Trek. "The first prototype that went into production was not successful, and has actually been withdrawn. So, if you can actually go out there and find any Professor Xaviers, it already is worth considerably more than it was when it went on the shelf because it no longer exists."

Ian McKellen was in agreement with Stewart about his figure's likeness according to Singer, "He looked at his action figure and he goes, 'Looks nothing like me. I love it'."

Ray Park has also had action figures made of himself before when Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace was released. Still, he couldn't resist picking one of his figures up on a recent shopping trip. "I saw mine in a Tower Records, and I went and bought it," he grins thinking about it. "I was hoping that no one would recognize me as I bought my figure. I was like, 'Yeah, this is cool'.'

"My character comes in a box with Jean Grey," says Davison of his own figure. "I'm sort of a squishy blob and if you squeeze the mutating Senator Kelly, you can feel him mutate. People told me that if you cut it open, there are little, clear plastic balls in there. My wife told me not to give it to my son because it was pretty grotesque. But he got a hold of it, and is now referring to me as 'Squishy Man'."

And should the X-Men do well at the box office and if the toys wind up flying off the shelves, there is plenty of room for a sequel, especially since the entire cast and it's director has been contracted to do at least one more film. In bouncing potential story ideas around for the second film Singer thought that Wolverine's backstory might be interesting. "The mystery and the history of Wolverine is very complex and could be a movie in and of itself," says Singer who included flashes of the character's history in his present movie. "It seemed quite natural to set it up, to establish it. We leave it at that, perhaps pick it up further, but not bog the story down with another story."
Jackman is confident that should Fox choose to make a sequel that it will be about his character, though he hopes they won't have to shoot in Toronto again. "I wouldn't mind a warmer climate," he jokes. "I'll put that bid in right now, and Bryan was always at me to try and introduce singing in the role."

In any sequel, Berry just hopes her character has more to do. "I would like Storm to get a date," she laughs. "I think that she is leading like a boring existence right now. I mean, she is a woman, but what I really connected with, and the next time, if there is a next time, what we can sort of explore that she is sort of the nurturer of the group. I think that she has been that throughout the history of the comic book. She is the quintessential earth mother, and I think that maybe that could be explored a little more."

As opposed to playing the girl that always needs to be saved, Paquin hopes Rogue is given some further responsibility in the next X-Men feature. "I would like to do a little fighting because I think that Rogue spends most of this movie being a bit of a damsel in distress, and it would be fun to maybe get to do a little bit flying, and some fight scenes," says Paquin raising her fists. "That would be fun."

Stewart wouldn't be averse to working on a sequel either, though he hopes that he has a few more scenes next time with Ian McKellen. "The scenes with Ian are quite brief, and they kind of bookend the movie," explains Stewart. "I don' think that it's out of order to say that there were a lot of discussions about whether there should have been more scenes, should we have met more often, and should there have been a more open conflict, and simply because I enjoy Ian's company a lot, I would've liked that. I would hope that if there is to be a future for this franchise, we might try to find more time for Magneto and Xavier to get together."

As for Singer, a week before X-Men opens he's just happy that he's finally done with the film and looks forward to seeing it with an audience for the first time. Will his hard efforts yield any dividends or will X-Men suffer the fate of previous comic book films? "If I wanted to compare it, the only movie that seems similar to me, the only super hero adaptation that seems similar at least for me, and was sort of a template that I referenced when trying to describe the level of seriousness and elegance that I hoped to bring to it was the first act of Superman" says the director. "That was an analogy, and other than that, I tried to make it as real and as human as possible, but still maintain a spectacle of fantasy that is excellent."

Copyright  © 2000 About.com, Inc.
About and About.com are registered trademarks of About.com, Inc.
The About logo is a trademark of About.com, Inc.
All rights reserved.