James Marsden Says the Suits He and Hugh Jackman Wore in X-MEN Were Impossible to Move in; He Thought They Might Get Fired

The X-Men movies were pretty good, at least the first couple anyway. They introduced us to a cool group of mutant superheroes before we were inundated with comic book movies and heroes left and right. The first film, which was released in 2000, featured a star-studded cast that included classically trained actors like Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan, as well as academy award-winners Halle Berry and Anna Paquin, and other major Hollywood stars Hugh Jackman, James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn, Famke Janssen, and more. The movies were action-packed, and the characters looked really cool, but that aspect of the film came at a price.

In a 2020 video interview with Vanity Fair (via /Film), actor James Marsden, who played Cyclops in the film, opened up about the restrictive costumes he and Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) had to wear, saying:

"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."

He went on to talk about how uncertain the cast felt about making a superhero movie at the time:

"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."

It’s cool that the movies ended up being good, and it all worked out with the costumes. X-Men is available to stream on Starz, and available to rent or buy on Amazon.