Dafne Keen Talks About Her Emotional Return to the Role of Laura/X23 in DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE
There were so many cool story and character dynamics in Deadpool & Wolverine, and one of them was the way they paid homage to (after desecrating the memory of) Wolverine’s Logan.
The film contained multitudes. One great scene that was allowed to dive a bit into the heartfelt was the one between Logan (Hugh Jackman) and Laura/X23 (Dafne Keen), who had grown a deep bond in Wolverine’s 2017 swan song, Logan.
While the Logan of this timeline was a different guy, it was an important moment for both of the characters, and Keen talked about it in a recent interview with THR, saying:
“Yeah, that was a really fun thing for me to play. Imagine losing your only father figure in life, only to reunite with your father almost 10 years later, but he doesn’t know that you are his daughter and he doesn’t have that bond with you in return.
“So it’s heartbreaking and beautiful that they are almost father and daughter in every universe. As soon as they meet each other, he feels comfortable enough to have that conversation with her. I don’t think he would’ve had that conversation with anyone else, and she wouldn’t have had that conversation with anyone else, either.
“So it was a really lovely thing to play, because, even if he doesn’t know her, he does know her. They’re one and the same. So it was a really emotional day for me and Hugh. We were at this campfire, and we’d done scenes at a campfire in Logan.
“We were in a forest, and we’d done a bunch of forest scenes in Logan. The last time we’d acted together was his death scene [in Logan], I think, and now we were back doing this. It was a night shoot, and you’re already delirious because it’s 3:00 a.m., but it was still a very emotional day.”
Keen did great reprising her role, and she brought a lot of heart to the film. She went on to talk about her first time seeing Hugh Jackman during a costume fitting, after not having seen him since their first film.
“The first reunion we had was after I had the costume fitting where I met the random cameo. I was halfway through the fitting and they were like, ‘Hugh is onstage next door and he really wants to see you.
“Can you just rush out?’ I was trying on jeans, so I had tags hanging off me, but I was like, ‘Yeah, sure!’ I then ran over while they were approving a set, and I just walked in and Hugh was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s you!’
“And then we hugged, and it was really crazy because we hadn’t seen each other in ages. He was like, ‘Oh my God, you’re so tall.’ And I was like, ‘Well, you haven’t seen me since I was 12.’ (Laughs.) So we hugged, but it was very quick because we were both being rushed.
“And then, as I was leaving, my car got stopped. They were like, ‘Shawn, Ryan and Hugh would love for you to read a scene with them.’ And I was like, ‘Right now?’ So we went and read the scene, and it was really fun and nice.
“The picture that Hugh posted of us was taken in that little room. And then our first scene together was not the campfire scene. That was the second scene we shot. The first scene we shot was a very random one that Hugh and I barely have dialogue in, so we just got to catch up off camera, which was really sweet.”
This movie was just a major lovefest filled with a ton of people who have major respect for one another, and who were out to make a great movie, which they did. Deadpool & Wolverine is in theaters everywhere.