There’s no shortage of iconic Wolverine performances for actor Liam McIntyre to draw from. Hugh Jackman made Logan synonymous with his gruff, feral take on the character across the X-Men movies, while voice actors including Cal Dodd and Steve Blum have each put their own stamp on Marvel’s clawed mutant. When McIntyre stepped into the role for Insomniac Games’ Marvel’s Wolverine, however, he wasn’t interested in simply copying any of them.
Asked which previous versions of Wolverine inspired his performance, McIntyre gave a fairly definitive answer: all of them.
“It was every single one,” McIntyre said in an interview with Polygon while discussing his new animated series Golden Axe. “I had so many great teachers, from wonderful performance of the past, and trying to find your own sort of spin or take on it.”
Becoming a Wolverine expert
For McIntyre, that meant looking at what made each previous interpretation of Logan work before figuring out how he could bring something of himself to the character.
“I would see Hugh [Jackman] and Cal Dodd and, Steve Blum and other wonderful performers and try to go, ‘Well, that’s such a great display of what makes Wolverine Wolverine. I’ll try and find the essence of that character as I can do it, because I can’t copy it,’” he said.
That distinction seems particularly important for Insomniac’s version of Wolverine. The studio’s game puts Logan at the center of a new story that draws from decades of Marvel history while giving him a new interpretation. McIntyre’s performance similarly aims to build on what came before rather than replace it.
The actor described the process as looking at Wolverine’s history, studying the words he was given, and figuring out which pieces of himself could fit into the character.
“That’s the joy of acting, right?” McIntyre said. “Trying to build on the shoulders of greats.”
McIntyre voices James “Logan” Howlett in Marvel’s Wolverine, bringing a more vulnerable side to the character alongside the expected anger and brutality. That performance is one of the game’s stronger elements, even if the rest of the package didn’t land particularly well with Polygon. Our review criticized the game’s story and overall execution, but singled out McIntyre’s “multifaceted” take on Logan, noting the sensitivity underneath his more feral exterior.
Reviews from other critics have been similar, making Marvel’s Wolverine one of Sony’s worst-reviewed PS5 exclusives.
Marvel’s Wolverine is set to launch on PlayStation 5 on Sept. 15. McIntyre can also be heard as Ax Battler in Golden Axe, Paramount Plus’ new animated adaptation of Sega’s classic arcade game. The series premieres Sept. 16, with all 10 episodes releasing at once.