The cast and director of X-Men: The Last Stand discuss what’s gay about the summer blockbuster.

By Lawrence Ferber

If a scientific cure for homosexuality were developed, would you take it? Or would you choose to retain your individuality regardless of social acceptance? And what of those who oppose the right to choose for yourself?

X-Men: The Last Stand, the third entry in the series, offers a poignant metaphor of this scenario. When a cure for mutation is invented, some mutants decry it while others line up to take it. This sets off a war between the mutants themselves. In one corner are X-Men leader Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart), Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Storm (Halle Berry), Cyclops (James Marsden), and others. In the other corner stands the bitter Magneto (Ian McKellen) and his Brotherhood of Mutants including Pyro (Aaron Stanford), Mystique (Rebecca Romijn), and the psychic Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), whose resurrection has turned her into the Dark Phoenix, endowed with the power to destroy anything in her path including her former teammates—and loves.

“Maybe overall, this one is the biggest of the three movies,” Janssen opines. “The most glossy, Hollywood, and hopefully most successful.”

Gathered in Manhattan's Mandarin Oriental Hotel for a full day of press and media, the film's talent (barring McKellen who, sadly, was out of town) and director Brett Ratner were game to discuss the films' queer analogies, singing and dancing mutants, and what may come next.

But, first, back to that poignant queer metaphor thing. In the X-Men comic book/movie mythology, the next step in evolution resulted in people born with distinctive mutations that kick in at puberty. These mutations can range from the ability to walk through walls, shape-shift, control the weather, and awesome psychic abilities. Bryan Singer, the openly gay director of the first two X-Men films, was keenly aware of mutants—regarded as outsiders, hated, and persecuted by government—being a metaphor for LGBT individuals. In X2, the character Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) came out to his parents as a mutant during one memorable scene (his saddened mother asked if he tried not being a mutant).

Singer bowed out of X3 due to his commitment to Superman Returns. But new director Ratner (Red Dragon), determined to be consistent with the style Singer established, was also aware of this metaphor and the impact that a cure for homosexuality could have in the real world. “X3 has a lot of points where the gay community will go, 'Wow, what if they offered a cure?'” Ratner remarks. “I don't think it's the choice of the parent. It's up to the individual. Yeah, every single character in this movie is gonna have an opinion of it. If you ask them would you take the cure, [some might say] 'Well maybe when I was 12 years old.' Or the person grows up and says 'This is who I am and I'm proud of who I am.' But I'm not just going to narrow it down to the gay community. Blacks, any minority. It's a very contemporary, relatable subject matter and it's really about a choice. Do you choose to retain your uniqueness or conform? And what are the implications of that?”

“I think the metaphor transcends your sexual preference, too,” agrees Marsden. “I think the metaphor is great with the X-Men—it could be your skin color or where you come from or religion and everything. So Brett realizes the theme of these films and deals with that.”

One X2 cast member who definitely appreciated the queer metaphor was out actor Alan Cumming, who played the blue-skinned Nightcrawler. While Cumming didn't return for X3, Kelsey Grammer (Frasier) joined the cast as Beast, a blue-skinned, furry genius who serves as the U.S. government's secretary of mutant affairs. “Alan appeared on Frasier just as X2 opened,” Grammer recalls. “He said [the makeup process to turn him blue was] hell. Hell. And I said, 'Oh, I wanna try that out.' But it's not bad getting into it—just hard staying in it for a long time. Not the most freeing or conducive to letting yourself go. You have to attend to the makeup as well as the character.”

Grammer was occasionally distracted from his makeup's constraints by Hugh Jackman, who regularly led the cast in song and dance breaks. “We all mince around and sing!” Grammer smiles. “We shook a lot of our bodies in the silliness of the late hours. Sang a lot of songs.”

Jackman, who will soon step back into the role of gay Australian singer-songwriter legend Peter Allen for a Sydney engagement of The Boy From Oz, engineered a bit of on-camera dancing during a climactic action scene. Wolverine and his allies form a defensive line to stop Magneto's Brotherhood, and “in one take I said 'Stay together and what ever you do… don't-stop-dancing!'” Jackman laughs. “And they played 'I'm Too Sexy.' So I start dancing and there's a close-up of Kelsey, and he had no idea I was going to do this, and he's all serious and starts doing [a little dance]! And you'll never see this footage because it would so undermine this franchise.”

With his accelerated healing factor, indestructible adamantium steel skeleton and retractable claws, Wolverine remains one of the X-Men's most beloved, enduring characters. He certainly plays a large role in X3, leading the team against Magneto, the Brotherhood, and the now evil Jean Grey—who was previously his unrequited love. “Wolverine has to take on more responsibility,” Jackman notes, “He's obviously hurting from the whole thing with Jean, and with this movie it goes to a whole new level. I love that. How far would you go for the woman you love, even if in his case it's unrequited love.”

Another character that went from X-friend to X-foe since X2 is Pyro, the fire-controlling youth played by Aaron Stanford. Since joining Magneto at the end of X2, did he learn to become more, er, flaming? After all, his hair is a lot more blond and fabulously styled in X3. “That's a loaded question,” Stanford responds, amused. “I think yes. But you know what the hair was? That was an attempt to be a little more true to the comic. The actual Pyro character had hair coiffed up in this flame. It looked like a giant candle flame and I said, 'Well I certainly don't want to do that.' But I thought I'd move it a little bit closer and at least have a flame-ish effect to the hair. How's that?”

Storm's snow white coiffure has certainly received a lot of fan feedback (mostly negative) since the first film. And while she finally donned a great-looking white-and-grey wig in X3, Halle Berry was most concerned with garnering more substantial material to work with. In fact, she threatened to walk away from the role. “Well, that's what I threatened, but I really wasn't going to do that,” Berry admits. “And this is all I ever wanted. Not really more screen time, because I know it's an ensemble, but if Storm spoke for five minutes I wanted it to be five minutes that meant something. Five minutes of character development, five minutes of point of view or back-story, history. Not just 'Go get the plane,' or 'Come on, kids, let's go!' To mean something after three movies!'

She got what she wanted—Storm is one of the most opinionated, vocal characters when it comes to the cure issue, taking a stronger leadership role, getting to fly and, at one point, literally spinning like a tornado. Or is that a twirl? “She spins,” Berry assures. The wirework stunt saw her complete 24 revolutions within 3 seconds. “If I were twirling I wouldn't have vomited! I was spinning!”

While the X-Men film trilogy does seem to come to an end with X3, there are spin-offs already being prepped. Jackman is developing and will star in a Wolverine feature, while a prequel about young Magneto is also in the works. McKellen has expressed an interest in playing this younger version of his character, thanks to a groundbreaking de-aging special effects process that allowed him and Stewart to appear 25 years younger during a scene at the start of X3. Since a bevy of additional characters from the numerous X-Men comic series make cameo appearances in X3—including the openly gay Phat (from X-Statix), who can transform from waif to superchub in a moment—the spin-off possibilities are endless. Patrick Stewart, for one, would like another opportunity to hit full throttle in his X-wheelchair.

“Only a few times have I said give me full throttle on this,” he admits. “It's kept tuned way down most of the time; it's very powerful. You can't actually do wheelies, but you can spin so fast that it becomes this sort of blur. My only disappointment about the wheelchair is there was this scene in the first movie where Hugh and I were walking down a corridor and had to turn into an elevator. The elevator door was only about half an inch on either side of the chair, just wide enough to go through. And I finally did one shot where, without breaking, I turned through the door, went inside, then spun it around so before the door closed I was facing the camera. They cut the scene out!”