12 Spectacular Cons Directors Pulled Off Shooting A Movie

8. Bryan Singer Explodes A Train Carriage To Scare Hugh Jackman €“ X-Men

X-Men It can be hard to shock an actor in a superhero movie. If you€™re portraying somebody who commits impossible deeds with the same customary rigour that you or I apply to breathing, then most situations are going to be completely insane anyway, if only to establish a sense of actual risk when dealing with what is for all intents and purposes a demigod. And in the pantheon of unflappable superhero actors, Hugh Jackman must be right up there on a pedestal. He€™s playing an ageless superhuman who shrugs off fatal injuries with little more than a shrug while possessing his own knife-kit on either hand and has an unbreakable skeleton to boot. Even if Jackman technically isn€™t any of these things, he must€™ve felt pretty badass while playing Wolverine, if for the mutton chops alone. To his credit, X-Men director Bryan Singer knew this, so resolved to make him soil his pants anyhow. The scene itself comes when Wolverine and Rogue are on a train which is ambushed by Magneto. Jackman knew that Ian McKellen was going to tear into the carriage, but thought this would just involve ripping the door off €“ something Singer chose not to correct, because he wanted to elicit genuine shock from his actor. So when the director yelled action and the whole damn carriage tore itself apart, Jackman thought something had gone wrong, resulting in a very real shocked and afraid face before Ian McKellen came swooping in for a display of flying camp villainy. Singer, through the medium of trauma, got the shot he wanted. Yet there was a happy ending here €“ Jackman used the footage for future reference to train himself how to react with shock better, proving once and for all that all traumas have a silver lining.
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Durham University graduate and qualified sports journalist. Very good at sitting down and watching things. Can multi-task this with playing computer games. Football Manager addict who has taken Shrewsbury Town to the summit of the Premier League. You can follow me at @Ed_OwenUK, if you like ramblings about Newcastle United and A Place in the Sun. If you don't, I don't know what I can do for you.