Posted in: Movies | Tagged: hugh jackman, james mangold, tao okamoto, the wolverine

The Wolverine — Tao Okamoto Interview

After the well-received London première of The Wolverine, I caught up with a few of the principals of the movie for a quick chat.

First up, model-turned-actress and the envy of every red-blooded woman in Christendom, Tao Okamoto.

"It's your first real movie, and it's one of the biggest releases of the year. Can you put into words how that kind of craziness feels?"

"I'm trying not to realise it, because if I did I'd be scared. But my audition process was very fast, it was only like a month or something. I didn't have much time to think about how big or important this thing was. So I was lucky really. I just enjoyed the filming, and the great cast, so the five months went very quickly. I didn't have time to feel scared.

"How did the audition process work?"

"I was in Japan, and my agent called me to tell me that I had an audition. And I said I wasn't interested in acting, at the moment. And he said 'You're crazy, you're going to be a love interest for Hugh Jackman.' So I said 'OK in that case,' because I'm a big fan of Hugh Jackman.

So I did my first audition, a video audition, in New York. Then I flew to Los Angeles a week later to see James Mangold. And about two weeks later I was back in New York and reading with Hugh. He wanted to do some improvisation, and I'd never done anything like that before so I just followed his lead and we ended up kissing each other!"

"So there's your big win right there. Everything after that is a bonus. But now you have done this enormous film, what are you going to do next?"

"I'm trying out for some other rôles right now. I really hope to have something to announce soon. But I'm still modelling too."

"Is there a kind of role that you're particularly interested in?"

"I don't know…maybe something quite different to this one. Maybe more of a serious drama. I studied classical music, I play the clarinet, so maybe something musical."

Hang on: Jackman's a bit of a singer. The basic superhero movie template's looking a bit tired. If that isn't a strong enough hint that Fox should make the next Wolverine movie a musical, I don't know what is.

The Wolverine is on general release now. read a review here. Or just go see it. It's not at all bad. Official.

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