James Marsden & Hugh Jackman's X-Men Suits Made For An Embarrassing First Day On Set
The X-Men character Scott Summers, aka Cyclops, always had to wear specially fitted sunglasses or a custom visor — outfitted with magical crystal lenses — to block the powerful laser beams that were always pouring out of his eyes. Weirdly, the eye beams couldn't burn through his own eyelids. The character of Wolverine, meanwhile, was outfitted with striped yellow spandex and an enormous mask sporting outsize facial "wings" that stuck out at least four inches on either side of his head. The costume didn't look very wolverine-like — wolverines aren't yellow — but it was pointy and vicious and looked cool on the page. High-contrast colors tend to "pop" in superhero stories.
Superhero costumes work perfectly well when the character is merely a drawing on a piece of paper. When outfitting living actors with the same costumes, however, it might look a little silly and, if the costume is too weird, will require a redesign. That was certainly the thought that went into the costumes for Bryan Singer's 2000 film adaptation, "X-Men." The yellow Wolverine spandex was considered too weird, and the characters even make fun of the idea in dialogue. The costumes, then, became full-body, all-black pleather jumpsuits with only the slightest hints of color hidden in a network of piping. Some comic book purists whinged about the change. Others took the redesign in stride.
The black pleather, however, came with issues of its own. In a 2020 video interview with Vanity Fair, actor James Marsden, who played Cyclops in "X-Men," talked about how the superhero jumpsuits weren't very flexible and how he and Hugh Jackman, who played Wolverine, had trouble moving, jumping, and performing stunts.
And, yes, Marsden had to wear that bloody visor every day of the shoot. He could barely see out of it.
Trying on the suits
James Marsden recalled being impressed by the ensemble cast of X-Men, which included classically trained actors like Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan as well as dazzling movie stars like Halle Berry and Anna Paquin. The conceit of the "X-Men" movies is that certain citizens are born with random mutant superpowers that manifest when they hit puberty. Mutants, however, are shunned from society and suffer prejudice every day from the world's non-superpowered people. A kind, mutant psychic named Professor X feels that humans and mutants can live together as equals, while a wicked magnetic mutant named Magneto would rather kill all the humans.
Cyclops and Wolverine were part of Professor X's retinue and were inducted into a superhero team that fought Magneto's "bad guys." That required a superhero uniform. A superhero uniform that Marsden hated. He recalled the first time he and his co-star Hugh Jackman slipped into the black leather outfits:
"Hugh and I, we put our suits on for the very first time and they were these one-piece, leather suits that had no side-to-side movement at the waist because it was all just one piece, and we had to vault over this wall and none of us could get over the wall because our suits were so stiff. Add to that, that I couldn't see out of these glasses or the visor that I was wearing. I've never felt less like a superhero. I think, at some point, we all were scared that we might lose our jobs on the first one."
There were eventually 10 or 13 sequels to "X-Men" (if you count the "Deadpool" movies) with Marsden appearing in two of them. He didn't lose his job. At the time, however, nothing felt like a sure thing.
Cool, or a disaster?
Recall that "X-Men" came at a time when superhero movies weren't common, nor a sure thing. Superman and Batman had great successes, but Marvel's many characters weren't necessarily well-known to the public. Plus, to realize the vast ensemble of X-Men characters on screen would require makeup and special effects no studio was yet willing to pay for. The film was considered something of a daring risk at the time and sequels were not guaranteed.
James Marsden recounted that vast uncertainty, especially as the production became increasingly headache-y. Luckily, by the time the film opened, everything had turned around. Marsden said:
"During the process, no one really felt like it was working. Like, this could be cool or it could be a disaster. And we had our premiere on Ellis Island, overlooking the Twin Towers with fireworks going off and it was just like, this is what I imagined when I was a kid of what Hollywood, or having success in Hollywood, would look like. It was pretty spectacular and a lot of fun to watch it take off. And then even more fun to step into the second one."
Marsden played Cyclops in "X2: X-Men United," although his character was killed in "X-Men: The Last Stand." He had a cameo in "X-Men: Days of Future Past" as well. The events of that film, however, rebooted the continuity (the "X-Men" movies are hard to follow) and Marsden was replaced by Tye Sheridan. Most recently, Marsden has appeared in "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" and "Disenchanted."