Liev Schreiber Did His Homework for Wolverine

As menacing as he is Sabretooth gave us a few minutes of his time to talk beating up Wolverine! We recently caught up with Liev Schreiber and had a chance to talk to him about playing the role of Sabretooth in the upcoming Wolverine movie.

Liev is a serious actor and took to the comic book character like he would any project by doing his homework;

I read the comics before I got offered the part. I mean, I knew the character really well. Initially I’d been asked to play Striker and I asked "Is there any chance I might be able to play this Victor Creed guy?" The research that I did on it, Victor's particular mutant issue has nothing to do with his name Sabretooth, but that was the place I decided to start. Just what is a Sabretooth and how does that work? How do they move? What are their behavioral characteristics?

I knew this stuff from the comic, I knew that he was just a completely savage street fighter and that was his MO, but what I hadn't seen in some of the earlier films that I was curious to kind of pursue is what drives the guy and what are the kind of qualities. I guess for me it's the same thing with a character like Zus. It’s like rather than just say they're a violent brute, what's the cocktail that makes the brute tick? Hopefully people will like it.

When asked if he could take Wolverine in a fight he made it quite clear he can;

I can take him. Yeah. [laughs] No, I really can. In fact, I do. But the reality is that Hugh since I've known him, I've known him a long time, has become this colossus of a man. He's like he's huge and muscles everywhere and I have to play this guy who whoops his ass.

So, as soon as I finished “Defiance,” I began this kind of four-month training period, weight lifting, genocide of chickens phase of my life where I just got bigger and bigger and bigger. I mean, it was awful but amazing and fun. And then when I finally got there and I got to choreograph the fights with Hugh and get on the wire and do the work, it’s not that it was just fun, I saw some footage and it's pretty cool.

Although Wolverine is a dark film with lots of over the top action and carnage Liev found the experience alot of fun and truly enjoyed working with Hugh Jackman and playing the role of uber villain Sabretooth;

It was insanely fun. I felt very self-conscious initially because I knew the fans didn't like that idea of me playing Sabretooth. I think I am perceived as a kind of urbane New Yorker. I don't know, maybe I've done too many movies with Jewish characters or something [laughs] and they're like "It's like Woody Allen playing Sabretooth" and I'm like “No, actually it's not. I'm 6 foot 3. I'm bigger than Hugh Jackman. I can do this.”  

Wolverine will be in theatres May 1st and without question is one of the Top 5 films I can not wait to see. Thanks to Liev for taking the time to answer questions during the junket for his new film Defiance. 'Wolverine' is a spin-off movie broken off from the X-Men series. In this movie we can expect to find out more about Wolverine's past, as he travels the globe in search of his lost memory.

It is unclear whether this movie will get an 'R' rating or 'PG-13', but one of the writers confirms that he will be gearing the movie towards an older audience, and that he would like to include more of Wolverine's 'berzerker' side. Still, the rating may be lowered because of the young target audience.