(upbeat music) - The Florida project, amazing. How did that come to you? How did you find out about it? - It came pretty traditionally
in the respect that I knew Sean was still looking for an actor for this one role. He had cast pretty much
the rest of the movie, but when I heard that,
I admired Tangerine, which is his precious film. He's made others, but that
was the only one I know. - Right. - I admired it and I said
let me see your script. I'd love to work with this guy
and the script was beautiful and I met with him and I
was very taken with how he'd talked about how he was
going to shoot the movie. - [Hugh] Right. - The fact that he really
mixes existing things with the fiction that he creates. - Yeah, in what way? - And also untraditional casting as well. In this respect, we're shooting
in an operational motel. I play the manager of the motel. - [Hugh] Yeah. - And the story that we're
telling is pretty much about that motel - Right. So people are living there? - Yes, yes and we're hanging out with them and they're helping us make the movie. And what it does is it really guides you because you get to know those people and the thing that I just couldn't get over is you realize, I mean,
it's a kind of a pattern for me in nice movies where
you have this life experience that changes your ideas about things or gives you a different perspective. - Yeah. - And you use that new
knowledge or that new love to apply to the imagination. - [Hugh] Yeah. - So we could inhabit that world with it not only kind of a confidence, but also with a certain amount of care. Those people became us. - [Hugh] Yeah. - So that's beautiful when that happens. - And were they encouraged? It's fine to walk in back with the shot, if there's something? - You know, they have to sometimes as extras and that sort of thing, but it was more about they were around and they were supporting us
and we saw how they lived. So you didn't have this
kind of distant idea about these people that were struggling. - Yeah. - You knew their particulars
and you identified with them. So it was easier to
inhabit those characters because you had such concrete models. - Kids, were there a lot of kids there? - There were a lot of kids because there were a lot of single mothers there. Set up for people that
haven't seen the movie is it's a world that I didn't know exist. There's a strip of motels right outside where all the amusement
parks are in Central Florida, most notably Disney, and
they are cheap tourist motels that a lot of people live
at long-term temporarily. Basically they're people without a home and it's a tough life. - Yeah, right. - And something about that setup becomes kind of a microcosm for a community and you see, I don't know,
it's very much a story about how we do and don't help each other. - Absolutely. - And what our responsibility
is to each other socially. When your friend puts
you in charge of her kid, that kid becomes your responsibility. You ain't taking responsibility. You got that one too? She's from Futureland, right? - Oh, whatevs. You gotta relax. - You gonna redo my expense
from Forts with your whatevs? - What was the deal with the helicopter? It was like a helicopter with like-- - The helicopter was a given. That's like. - That's taking people
to the parks and back? - Yup.
- Wow. - It was a low budget
movie, so I think initially they intended to pay them
off to stop you know, the last thing that you want
when you're shooting a movie is aircraft going up, but
we didn't have enough money to pay them off, it's
too profitable for them. So we just accepted it. That became part of the landscape. - Worked so well. - Those little details are
really what give the film not only a realism but a vitality. - But the shot where you're
leaving one of the rooms, I can't remember, and the
helicopter's going off in the reflection,
that's just happenstance? - [Willem] That's it. - Wow. - And you, Logan. It's a long run for this
Wolverine character. - 17 years, crazy, right? - I mean I can understand
why Logan happened, but how's it feel to leave it? Tell me a little bit about
that run of that character? - It was a huge shock for me. I was playing Curly in the
musical Oklahoma at the Royal National Theater
when I did the audition. I literally, my audition was
in Central London in SoHo and I had to do it between the
matinee and the evening show and it's like a long show. I whipped off the leather
chaps and I ran into SoHo and I did the, I have a perm in my hair and I did the audition and I put a cap on because I had this ridiculous perm 'cause I was playing Curly
and the casting director was like take the head
off after the first take and she was like put the hat back on. And I remember I got a
callback, it surprised me. I got a callback and
they said listen, right, perhaps you could lose
the Southern cowboy accent and maybe lose the perm. - I said I can't lose the perm, but I can do my best with the accent and then I had about nine auditions. - Wow. - Finally got the part I
think nine months later. It was very long. I just presumed it was
never going to happen. - [Willem] Did they ever
make you take your shirt off? - In the audition, no. In the movie, pretty much every scene. - I'mma count three and you
gonna start walking away. - I got rights to this one. - One. - I have a lawyer now. - Two. - Three. - You alright, boss? - I had no idea. I remember finishing the first movie and a mate of mine who was in Hollywood, he was a player in Hollywood, he goes, dude, I've heard not very
good things about the movie. You really should book something
else before it comes out. So there's about a four month gap. He goes, just make sure
you've got something else 'cause when it comes out, you're back down to the bottom of the pile again. Happily, he was wrong,
but no one really knew. There was no comic book genre. Comic book movies were really
not around at the time. - What year is that? - 2000 when it came out. - Yeah, that's very close
to Spider-Man later. - Spider-Man came out two years later. - [Willem] Yeah. - And Kevin Feige was the
assistant to the producer on the movie and I remember
going into his office and it was literally like
walking into a comic store. There was action figures
and posters and comic books everywhere and he was right into it and of course now he's running Marvel, but I had no idea it would be 17 years and I think with this one, honestly, what happened was I had a
dinner with Jerry Seinfeld who's a friend of mine, I was asking him about
the end of the series. How did you decide? Long story, he kind of said
look, I've always believed creatively you should never
spend everything creatively because it's almost
Herculean to start up again. You should always have
something in the tank, leave the party before it
gets too late kind of theory and then somehow, it spurs
you into the next thing and then as he was talking, I went home and I said to Deb, on
my way home in a cab, I said we've, this is the last one. She says what? I just know this is the
last one and I woke up the next morning with
this very strong idea, which Jim Mangold and
I have been working on of treating it not like a
comic book movie in any way, treating it not like a
superhero, but like a human being with he's lived a life of
violence and let's make a movie about the
ramifications of violence and I was thinking The Wrestler,
I was thinking Unforgiven. That kind of thing and the
moment I had that thought, I was super charged, super
excited, absolutely sure I wouldn't play it again and very nervous because it's 17 years, I mean
you're a theater man like me. It's like the end of a long run. You really want your
last show to be the best. You don't want to finish on a bad note. - That's right. - And it wasn't until I
saw the premiere in Berlin and literally the end, I
cried and it was gratitude to Jim Mangold who pulled off something. I'll forever be in debt to him. 17 year journey and also
just seeing on screen what I held in my head and heart as a possibility for the character. - That's beautiful. - Incredible kids in your film. You have a number of incredible films. - [Willem] And the girl in yours, Daphne. - Daphne came, both her parents in the business, mainly in theater. - Okay. - Will, her father is an
English actor and director. He's worked a lot of the Royal Court and the Globe and you know,
he's in The Crown, that series. He works a lot and her mom, Maria, is a Spanish actress and director who does a lot of theater as well as film and they're amazing. They're theater folk, you know, so there's no sense of
having like an on-set kid with pushy stage peers. They really understand the
process and Jim came up with the idea of having
this third element, make a movie about family, that the thing that terrifies
Logan the most is love, actually an intimacy and
the ramifications of what that is, the pain it can bring
and so having this sort of unwanted daughter, the
ailing father was key but I said Jim, I love the idea of it. I don't think we're gonna find somebody. Like I think we're putting,
you're backing yourself into a corner here because
you have to believe that this 11-year-old
girl has the ferocity and sort of DNA of violence within. - [Willem] You found her. - [Hugh] Right, we found her. - She's scarier than you are. - Unbelievable. The stillness, the
ferocity, I mean honestly when we did--
- And the violence. - I had bruises on my
arm after the rehearsal, but she's an amazing young girl and her performance is astonishing to me. - Stop.
- Don't hit me. Don't hit me. (Laura speaks in foreign language) Right now, stop saying those names. Stop. Fine, fine. As when I watched yours,
it's been a long time since I've seen a movie
with that sense of freedom among the kids, that sense of play, the range emotionally is incredible. How did Sean find?
- Sean is fantastic with making those kids feel comfortable. I mean Brooklynn in
particular has real skills. She has really strong instincts
and she's precociously, you know, she's smart, she's
clever, she can invent things. - [Hugh] Right. - The other kids, you
know, it's it was very key for Sean to make them feel
like they were playing, give them things that they like to do. So he gave them really a
long leash and you know, because he worked with
nontraditional casting, there were a lot of people,
the majority of the people that never made a movie
before as far as the cast, which was fantastic for
me because it was like they didn't have anything to compare it to and they were all turned on. It was like the beauty
of you know, beginners without any anxiety and Sean
set them up so beautiful that these kids played
so they were children and they were inventive like children. They could be chaotic like children. (kids whistle) - What was his process? Did he let the camera roll a long time? - Yeah, you know, a combination. There was a strong script, you know, not a lot of text but very clear actions and then he'd, sometimes he'd tell them to put it in their own words. He'd make them very comfortable and make them kind of forget the camera. It was a very kind of warm atmosphere and so these kids didn't stress. They didn't think about making a movie. They didn't think about careers. They didn't think about being an actor. They were just having
fun with their friends. - It looked like that. - [Willem] Yeah. - And then some very
emotional scenes as well. - Yes.
- Beautiful scenes. - And I think those were done once everyone felt close, you know. There was a real stake there. - [Hugh] Yeah, right. - And it was fun for me
because what I was doing in the movie was paralleled by where I was positioned in the
movie in the respect like the kids, sometimes
I had to wrangle them and I love these kids but they were also out of control sometimes. It was like frustrating
so that was absolutely the food for the character
of Bobby, you know 'cause as the hotel manager,
I have to wear lots of hats and I have to deal with different
people in different ways. So it's one of those beautiful
things where you create a working situation that informs or feeds the actual fiction of the movie. - Right, but what I love
and what I could see also is very fine line character
Bobby and you as an actor playing him of feeling
for these characters. I got such, there was empathy. At the same time, I'm
not gonna get too close. The feeling of this
character who have seen many many people come through is sort of attached and not attached and that line that you play is so beautiful. I thought that was really astonishing. - Thank you, it was all there. I mean I was there to receive it. I mean the setup was beautiful and the fact that this is the thing that I really liked about this character and I didn't know it
until I actually played it was you know, he's a simple guy. He's not an extraordinary person. He really wants peace. He just wants to watch the ballgame. He's had some trouble in his life, but he wants a certain kind of peace and he realizes that
his sense of well-being is dependent on the people in the motel and the motel is dependent on him. So he takes it as kind of a responsibility not in a big moral stance
but just as a natural thing and it's kind of beautiful
to see that expressed that like a working class
guy with his own challenges can you know extend
himself to other people when he's, he, you know
it's a lot for him. Aren't you going to drink it now? - Yes, yes. - Good? - Sure. - Get the fuck out of here. We both started out in the theater and you've got a strong, I'm very jealous 'cause you have a very strong
musical theater background. - Right, yeah. - Which, you know. - It surprised the hell
out of me, by the way. - Pardon? - It surprised me. - What, in what sense? - I was an actor, in my drama school, there was an acting school
and a musical theater school and I was in the acting
school and I could, for the actors, I could sing. Literally all of the
graduates were better than me and I got straight out of drama school, I did a TV series and
then I went into doing Beauty and the Beast and Sunset Boulevard and some of my mates were like dude, that's our business. We're in Australia and there's
like seven jobs a year. Really, you have to take
our musical theater jobs? So it kind of surprised
me and I learned a lot after I left. I always loved it. I do love, as a senior,
I always felt pretty much like a fraud for the first five years but somehow when I was
acting, it was fine. I could get away with it, but
I'll never forget, actually. I was doing Beauty and the
Beast and they asked me to sing the national
anthem at a Rugby match and there was 100,000 people. It's the Bledisloe Cup,
which means nothing to you but to me, is the Super Bowl. - Where is that, like Melbourne? - It was in Melbourne, but it
was Australia vs New Zealand in rugby and I sang and I had a panic attack the night before. July 26th, I can still tell you the day. I was terrified and I'm doing it, I was like, what am I doing? I'm an actor, why am I
putting myself out there? And actually that, getting through that is the most, I was
three times more nervous doing that than hosting the Oscar's. Like everything since then so
I'm so glad that worked out. If I had bombed, I probably would've just walked out of the business. Anyway, I'm telling a long story. - [Willem] No, it's good. - I left drama school
and I was 26 when I left and I was like okay, I
worked so many part time jobs and the only businesses
that seemed to work and acting is basically a small business. Your name is your brand and I was like I have to do something every single day. I will not wait for the phone to ring. So me and my mate Simon decided
to start a theater company and the day I graduated, I
got a part in this series. Long story, I never did anything
at that theater company. That theater company is still
going, kind of like Wooster. It's still going. - You didn't call me. See? You're not the only one
with spinning hands. - I've always admired actors like you who're just drawn by the work, who want to, theater, wherever it goes, just to create and I took a photo outside the court of the theater,
the Royal National Theatre when I was in drama school. That was my dream and when I was 28, I was there doing Oklahoma and I had no dreams beyond this point. I was, I used to watch
the John Barton tapes with you know, McKellen
and Patrick Stewart. - Yes, yes. - David Suchet and Scoefeld, all those, that was, for me, the pinnacle. I never thought I'd hit to Hollywood. Did you always? - No, when I started out, first, I grew up in a place where
I didn't know any people that were involved in
entertainment or art. So I just kind of
gravitated towards people and I gravitated towards situations. The most notable one
was The Wooster Group, which was an experimental
avant garde theater company in New York City and it's
like I worked a little bit before that, but that's
like 1977 and basically that was my life and my identity was basically as a theater performer and not even a traditional
theater performer. I mean, in fact, I'm saying
performer rather than actor because I identified with
being the technician too. We did everything. We made stuff. - Did you want, when you were there, was it like, this is my dream,
I always want to be an actor. - Yes and no. I was around people that I so admired and I was so turned on
and when I was actually doing the work, I loved it so much, but also I was a little depressed that we were so marginalized. - [Hugh] Right. - And we had our own community, but I think there was a part of me that wanted to bust out a little bit. And that was just a concern
in the back of my mind. When I was actually
working, I was very happy, but it was a tough life
and it was hard to keep the theater running. What really saved us was
that we had a theater space so no one could kick us out. - Right and then you kept,
when movies happened, you kept. - I kept, in fact, in the
beginning of my career, funny word for me. - You can now call it a career. - Yes. - You're at the point. - I guess. - You know, I would get
heckled by the theater. Don't go, stay. - You're a sellout, that kind of thing? - Not so much a sellout,
but it was practical. If we were going to continue working. - [Hugh] We need you. - Yeah, I would go away and it would ruin the fabric of things. - [Hugh] Right. - Basically, I was working there. I wasn't really soliciting work
and then some people saw me. It was Kathryn Bigelow. - Really? - And another guy by the
name of Monty Montgomery and Kathryn and Monty
Montgomery were making a small film called The
Loveless and they invited me. They said, would you
like to play this part and they sent me the script and I thought oh this is cool. It was Kathryn Bigelow's first feature and I said yeah and they
said okay, let's do it and I was like, I called
up friends and I was like what do I ask for? I didn't have an agent. I didn't know any business
protocol, you know? So I said, I'm gonna need and I went off and I made this movie,
had a wonderful time. I thought this is great. You go someplace, you
make a little family, you make something. It's a parallel life. You have an adventure,
you learn something. I was totally turned on. - Did you feel totally
comfortable in it from the getgo? - You know, it was a very
particular film because it was very stylized so it
wasn't naturalistic acting, but as far as relating
to the camera, yeah. I, with the group, very
early we were dealing with mixing technologies so I was used to being around cameras and things. - I mean we were kind of
both there at the beginning of this wave. - But it's funny, everything changes. I don't even know. It's the beginning, but
now our whole industry's grown around you know, Marvel and DC. - Yeah. - They're movies that get
exported in a successful way. So I think that's what drives them. - [Hugh] Right, yeah. - You know, they're stories that kind of cross across cultural
conditioning so it can work in Asias as well as it
could work in the States because the stories
are very, I don't know, they're muscular enough
and their set pieces are visually exciting enough. I don't know why they work. - I think they're generally
exceeding people's expectations. I think 10 years ago, I
remember hearing people say oh, I don't think this
will last much longer and it's just continued
to grow and I don't think anyone saw that coming. - One thing I remember when
Spider-Man was proposed to me. Really, you're gonna make a movie from a comic book, you know? It was like, I was slumming it, you know? - Right.
- Really. - Right, isn't that interesting? - I didn't see it that way,
but some people, really? - Yeah and that was, it was
a great movie, Spider-Man. I think X-Men did a lot particularly when it opened up in
the concentration camp and the idea that we
were taking it seriously in terms of more humanistic
rather than superhuman and then I think Nolan
really just raised the bar to a whole new level and
made people see beyond any kind of genres, not
just genre of the film. But they have continued to really surprise and entertain and be very different. You have something like Deadpool, Logan. I think seers are taking risks
and doing different things and I have no idea how long it'll last. I mean, you're about to
do another one, right? - I did Aquaman. - Oh, you've done it, right. - And Australia, by the way. - Did you? - Yeah, it was a great experience. - Of course, we've got a
lot of water down there. - James Wan, very strong director. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Great fun because I still
like to do all the action stuff. - I do too. - I love it because it's the
kind of simplest performing. You have an action and
you apply yourself to it and something happens. - That's interesting. I see it as dance. - Me too. - Very much like dance. - Me too. I see performing as dance. - Yeah right, really. - What's next? - We're doing a musical man, come on. - You know I could sing, right? - We can play Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. - I'm more Gene Kelly. - You're more Gene Kelly? Okay, I'll try and do Fred. - That's so interesting. - I could be Ginger too. - Oh, alright, now we're talking. When I started acting, and
you would've done this at Wooster, we did as much work on movement and use of our bodies
as a form of expression as your voice or anything
else and I think that is real, I don't know if it's taught anymore, but that's why I'm glad I
had four years of training. - I think it is, but there was
a lot of cross fertilization of the different disciplines. Like at the Wooster, most of
the people weren't actors. They were dancers, they were painters. They were architects. They were from different disciplines, but we always had a heavy, it was always very physical work. Me personally, when I was young, I was very taken by Jerzy Grotowski's psycho-physical exercises and also the theories of his work so that had a huge impact on me. - With your experience,
I'm gonna call it a career, I always used to say
never use the word career as an actor. You never use it like
something about your sibling. - One at a time, one at a time. - One at a time and assume
it's your last, right? - [Willem] Yeah. - It's the same as performing
in the theater, right? Assume it's your first and
assume it's your last show. How do you handle yourself
with disappointment or either of a project
or in your own work? Do you feel you're getting
more philosophical about it? - I do, I do. I do also because when you
have enough disappointments, you know that you survive them, you know? - Yeah, right. - And also, successes
don't feed you the same way that disappointments do or failures do. I think it's a cliche, but
I think it's really true. Somewhere deeply, you learn
more from your failures. Not so much consciously like
oh I'm not gonna do that again but it gives you kind of
strength to kind of focus on what you really think is important and where to apply yourself. So you may not have,
you may even repeat some of those mistakes, but the more you do it, it's practice, you know? It's the old try, fail,
try, fail, try, fail better. - Yeah. - It's that. - Do you love acting
as much now than ever? - I love it more than ever. - Same. - Because it runs a little deeper and certain things, I don't care about that once maybe used to distract me. - Yeah, right. - I feel a little more focused. - Yeah. Definitely. In general, when I was younger, everything I found critical about myself just meant too much. Not just acting. When I was 16 with that relationship. It was all, I can look
back now and go come on. It was a game of cricket. It wasn't the end of the
world, but at the time, it felt like that and I
think beginning of my career, it felt like that if I didn't get a gig or if the gig didn't get well. - But at the same time, I hear someone say it ain't brain surgery, I feel annoyed. - Yeah. - It's like, it is. So I still have the same kind of stake. I relate to what you say. - Yeah. - The stake hasn't changed. It's not that I'm easier about it. It's just you recognize
cycles a little bit better and you know that you will survive. So it's like you stop worrying about the stuff that you can't do anything about and you focus more on the stuff that you can do something about. I think that's probably what has happened. - The other thing to me is
being choices, making chances. I've learnt the hard way
sometimes doing things that I didn't do alright
when against my gut on it. That's hard and I really
try to avoid that now. And actually, failure, if you
really in it when you say yes, it's fine. - I love you. Nah, I'm with you. If you know why you did
things and you're kind of pure and you're in that, you can
live whatever the outcome is. - [Hugh] Yeah. - Because you can't control everything so you can only control your intention and your kind of, yeah, your good impulse. Your degree of engagement. - [Hugh] Yeah. - And that, in fact, when you're free of the idea of the result, sometimes the engagement can run so deeper because you're not preoccupied
and thinking ahead. You're not thinking ahead of yourself. You're doing this for this. - Yup, that was fun, man. - Yeah, a pleasure, really. (energetic music)
