One man, two very different people. One of them has razor sharp claws and a temper that rivals the Hulk, while the other one is a talented singer, dancer, actor and family man. If you look at Hugh Jackman’s work before the first X-men, you’d be quite surprised that he was chosen out of what I assume was a large list of great actors to play Wolverine. I’ve seen clips of his Oklahoma performance, and while it’s not my thing, it’s easy to tell what an amazing actor that guy is. After all, Wolverine is not a simple character to play. Many consider him to be the world’s best comic book anti-hero. He’s not your average crime pursuing superhero. In fact, most of the time he’d rather avoid the whole thing. At the heart of it though, he’s a man with a rare condition. He can’t die.
No matter what happens to him, he just doesn’t die. It may be hard to see what’s wrong with that. I know that I would like to heal rapidly and be nearly immortal. But what’s the point of being immortal if everyone you care for eventually dies? Everybody around him lives their life whether it be long, or short, while his is never ending. There are three primary elements that make up the Wolverine that I think Hugh Jackman exudes amazingly in each of his performances.
First, and most obvious is the Rage of the beast. The Wolverine’s mutation has also opened him up to having a lot of enemies. People that want to exploit him, hurt him and use him. He’s seen a lot of death, and violence through years of war as well. I think that after all of that, I would be angry as well.
The second element is Heart. I hate to sound like Captain Planet. I mean, I always say that if those guys ever got in a real fight, the Heart guy would be the first to die. But all jokes aside, Heart is important. And the fact that the Wolverine has a big heart but is also an angry bitter ‘old’ man, makes him a very interesting character.
And finally, the last element is the Physicality of the role. The dedication that Hugh Jackman puts into the gym to create The Wolverine Physicality is fantastic. His dedication as an actor playing a highly physical character is on par with an elite athlete training for their sport. He’s only gotten better and better with each new movie. He’s followed many different workout routines for over a decade, and created a Physicality that most will only dream of. Honestly, I love the fact that actors are becoming more and more dedicated to looking the part of a very physical character. They’re not relying on muscle suits or pretending that their acting makes up for lack of Physicality. It’s important to look the part, and that’s exactly what Hugh Jackman does.
Now that I’m done ranting about how awesome Wolverine, and Hugh Jackman are, I’m finally going to get into the Hugh Jackman Wolverine Workout.
As I stated in the above paragraph, Hugh Jackman has had many different “Wolverine Workouts.” But from what I have heard, and what I have read from several sources is that his most recent training consisted of three different phases of strength training. These are a Mass building phase, a Strength building phase, and what I call an overall Athletic phase.
