"I've seen the first cut and it's in really good shape," Hugh Jackman says of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, his fourth film as the mutant superhero. "I wanted it to be different from X-Men."

"It's a prequel, so I wanted it to explain the character and to have that uncompromising tone that Wolverine has. He's not the nicest superhero going around."

"Over the first three movies, he was getting softer. That was getting away from his core. In the comic book he's a really full-on character. He's revealed a lot more in the new film and you see his origins from when he was a little kid. He's had a pretty painful past.

"I don't know if there will be another Wolverine movie, but if there isn't, you could cut from the end of this one to him in the bar where he's having those cage fights in the first X-Men. There are quite a lot of layers to him.

"He's a real anti-hero, a badass character. He's not always the nice guy, but you want him on your side. He's not politically correct. He does exactly what he wants. He's his own man. He's Dirty Harry. He's Mad Max.

"As an actor, he's great fun to play. He is the cool guy boys want to be. Even I find that when I'm watching the X-Men movies. I kind of forget it's me, even though I'm not that kind of guy at all."

• X-Men Origins: Wolverineopens on May 1st, 2009