Magician competition
Batman vs. Wolverine.
It sounds like a drive-in movie. And someday, joke the actors who play those roles, it just might be.
But when Christian Bale (who played the title character in “Batman Begins”) and Hugh Jackman (Wolverine in the “X-Men” series) square off in movie theaters starting today in the drama “The Prestige,” it will have nothing to do with superpowers.
“There’s a scene early on in which something bad happens while both Christian’s character and my character are watching, but we’re pathetic because we can’t do anything about it,” Jackman says.
“I turned to him and said, ‘You know, for a couple of superheroes, we’re not worth much here, are we?’ “
He and Bale play competing magicians whose rivalry turns increasingly personal and nasty. The story takes place in the early 1900s, which raises the stakes for their confrontation.
Magicians were the rock stars of that era, Jackman says.
“Many people believed that the magicians were doing what they claimed,” he explains.
“Now, when David Copperfield makes the Statue of Liberty disappear, we admire his craft but we don’t actually think that he made it vanish. But in those days, they thought it was genuine. And that made the magicians huge stars.
“To be the No. 1 magician in the world, the stakes were very high. There was a lot of money involved.”
And very few scruples. Stealing tricks from other magicians was considered part of the job, Jackman adds.
In the film, Bale comes up with an over-the-top feat that awes the public and frustrates Jackman, who becomes obsessed with learning the secret of how it’s done, no matter what it costs financially or emotionally.
That leads Jackman’s character “on a descent into his dark side that I found quite interesting to play,” he says. “I think it’s really fascinating what goes on. They mask their ambition quite well, but it still ends up overtaking them.”
Both stars approached director Christopher Nolan (“Memento”) about the project.
“There are few people in this profession who express their passion for things like that,” Bale says. “I think that’s one reason he went with us.”
When Nolan sent them the script, he didn’t designate which character he wanted them to focus on. As it turns out, Jackman says, each gravitated toward the role that felt natural.
“I would have played either one,” he says. “But I think Christian and I ended up in the roles for which we are best suited.
Both Bale and Jackman expect to revisit their superhero personae in 2008. Scripts are in the works for “The Dark Knight,” in which Heath Ledger is penciled in to play Batman’s nemesis, the Joker, and “Wolverine,” a prequel to the “X-men” trilogy.