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X-MEN: THE LAST STAND
22 May 2006, Cannes, France -- Overnight
The Da Vinci Code
left Cannes – all the actors (except this one) flew home and their
characters’ likenesses in photos and posters were taken down. The X-Men
arrived and Magneto’s Brotherhood. In the front garden of the Carlton
Hotel, bang in the middle of the Croisette, there we all were in battle
costumes, leather, cloaks and armour – life-size cut-outs of the cast on
parade and ready for action. And the next day we re-assembled in person
flying in from all over and, jet-lagged, prepared for action – same
journalists as I had met earlier in the week, in 7-minute interviews for
the television cameras or speaking to groups of a dozen or so print
journalists round a table. Sausage factories come to mind – and of
course the three favourite questions.
1. What was it like working with Brett
Ratner after Bryan Singer?
2. Is it true that there will be a
Magneto spin-off movie?
3. If you could have your own super
mutant power, what would it be?
To which I reply over and over:-
1. Once Brett told the cast that he intended to follow Bryan’s
lead in the first two movies, I think we all were relieved that
there were to be no stylistic U-turns and that we would be expected
to re-deliver the characters in the way we had presented them twice
already. Of course the two directors have different
personalities but their approach was to be the same. Both
relish directing movies so much that if they were not allowed to do
it any more, I think they mightn’t find life much worth living. Such
enthusiasm is infectious.
2. I have been hinting over the years since the first
X-Men film that
another one concentrating on Magneto would be “a good thing”,
meaning I would enjoy making it. My hints seem now to have
solidified into a rumour which might even develop into the actuality
of such a project. Certainly Hugh Jackman is helping to
produce a similar thing for Wolverine. Time will tell. I
am encouraged by the success of the new technology which has made
Patrick Stewart and me look convincingly 25 years younger in
X-Men: The Last Stand,
to think that I might, if required, play an even younger Magneto in
the projected spin-off.
3. It would be a wonderful gift to be able to somehow control,
limit even eliminate noise in public places. Imagine being able to
silence an automobile, an aeroplane, an iPod! There are many
sorts of pollution and unnecessary noise is one of the most
intrusive and yet difficult to get rid of.
 On
the day of our premiere, the cast is assembled for photographs and
interviews in a lavish villa in the hills above Cannes. In the
morning, Charles and Erik, Xavier and Lensherr, the Professor and
Magneto, Stewart and McKellen, Patrick and Ian, the two old chums
have played a series of double acts for the television stations
round the world. This was followed by a buffet lunch before
the traditional press conference where no doubt the above three
questions will be asked. Then I’m having a massage at my hotel
before a meal with the others and my first climb this week up the
red-carpeted steps into the Grand Palais cinema. -- Ian McKellen,
22 May 2006
Rebecca Romijn and Ian McKellen
Cannes, 2006
Photo by
Robert Leslie/Vanity
Fair Italy
P.S. Last evening, after a meeting to raise finance for
Colossus, Sean Mathias’s script about political shenanigans
round the deathbed of Cecil Rhodes, I paid my nightly visit to
Century, the beachside hang-out for members of the London club of
the same name. My promise of an early night was thwarted by
sounds of familiar music along the Croisette. Justin Bond (“Kiki”
to his admirers like me) is in John Cameron Mitchell’s latest film
and entertaining the crowd on the beach just below my hotel.
Then John himself sang under the stars, with the Mediterranean as
his backcloth - Cannes at its most romantic.
P.P.S. At the cast press conference I was asked which was my
favourite of the two films I have been promoting at the Festival. I
replied : "Lord of the Rings”,
which seemed to satisfy.
Photo of Brett Ratner, Patrick Stewart, and Ian
McKellen
Cannes, May 2006
AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth
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