X marks the slot

Co-star Halle BerrY reveals that she was determined to make her character, Storm, more central in this third mutant movie THE third X-Men movie is called The Last Stand but star Hugh Jackman hints that it won't be the last audiences see of his character Wolverine. He's developing a spin-off movie that will see the hairy fighting machine with the retractable claws and healing powers starring in his own adventure.

"I love playing that character, " admits Jackman. "In terms of action movies, he's certainly the greatest role that I've had.

Many of the roles in X-Men are great for the actors because there's a little meat on the bone.

"I've read a lot of the comic books and now know how rich they are and how much there is about their characters that we've still not explored. So, there genuinely is enough reason to make a movie for that character.

"It's not that I'm afraid of not working or money or anything like that, I just really love playing it. For me as an actor, you have to go on your gut instinct, you'll know when it's time to hang up the claws.

At the moment, I still feel like slicing and dicing a little more."

Jackman doesn't even rule out more XMen movies. "There may be more and I can see fodder for more but whether that happens or not, who knows? , " he says.

"One thing's for sure, though, all the actors came back and none wanted to come back feeling they were just gratuitously making a buck and the studio was trotting this out.

"I felt like the script we had was the best of the three and that's why everyone signed on.

"Another film wouldn't happen unless there was a genuine feeling that we had another story to tell that was evolving.

We're all proud of what's been created."

Jackman took a little longer to get in the right physical condition to play Wolverine this time because he'd been in a musical on Broadway and lost a lot of weight. "So I had to get back into it. But I'm a little competitive with myself so I kind of keep wanting to jack it up, " he says.

He's pleased that much of the action sequences involved physical stunt work rather than computer-generated effects. It always worries him when he can spot stunt doubles being used. His brother-inlaw doubles for him. Jackman says: "You know instinctively when you're being tricked or not.

"So the more you can do the better. I'm not going to appear to be a hero and I'll tell you when I'm going 80mph into a tree and then falling down through all the branches, that's Rich, that's my brotherin-law. But we're family, so it's kind of the same thing."

The third X-Men reunites him with British footballer-turned-actor Vinnie Jones, who plays Juggernaut. The pair appeared together in the thriller Swordfish, when Jones used to kick around a blow-up punching bag doll of Wolverine on the set. The new X-Men movie gave him the chance to trade blows as Juggernaut fights Wolverine. "It was kind of like I said, 'mate, this is your chance. Now you can really have a go at it', " says the Australian-born actor.

Jones had other ideas, connected with England's Ashes cricket victory. "I went over to my seat on the set and Vinnie, with the first assistant director, had erected this tent which had the Union Jack and an urn with ashes inside, " recalls Jackman.

AS weather-changing Storm, Oscarwinner Halle Berry is one of the heroes of the three X-Men movies.

In real life, one of her own heroes is closer to home - her mother. "She was a single mom raising two little kids. She happened to be white and raising two little black kids in the Sixties made her something of an outcast, " she says.

"She did it with such strength and grace, and managed to make sense of it for me as a kid. So she will always be heroic in my mind. My fifth grade teacher is another one. She's still one of my very best friends today. When I think of heroes in the modern day, I think of someone who stands up for what they believe in.

People who articulate their position and feelings in a beautiful way that all people can understand, whether you agree or disagree."

The special powers of her X-Men character Storm enable her not only to change the climate but fly, something that proved a testing time for Berry. You've heard of Halley's comet but not Halle's bucket. This was an essential part of the equipment when Storm took to the skies.

She says: "I enjoy doing my stunts. I was a gymnast when I was a kid so any time I get to try to stretch my physical limits, I love it. In this movie I thought it was easy peasy - a little hand-to-hand combat and flying on wires. I'd done that, but this time I had to spin at 90mph and what you discover when you spin at 90mph is that something must come out and it comes out in sprays.

"That was probably one of my most embarrassing moments on a movie set.

Thank god we have a word called 'cut' so I was able to clean up and do it again."

She kept Halle's bucket, the receptacle the production team provided for her motion sickness, as a reminder of the experience. The actress was determined that Storm would evolve in the third instalment, feeling responsibility towards fans of the X-Men comics to make this happen.

"I remember the feeling after the second movie when I ran into some fans when they accosted me in the street. They were angry that Storm didn't step out, that Storm had somehow dwindled into the background, and that in the original series she was an African god, she was revered, she ruled a country.

"In that moment I said, 'you know what, if I come back, I'm gonna make it my responsibility and my mission to have her evolve and satisfy these fans a little more'."

She appealed to director Brett Ratner - who took over as director from Bryan Singer, who directed the first two X-Men movies - early on about making that happen. As "a senior member" of the team she felt pressure to make the comic fans happy.

The mutants at the heart of X-Men are treated like outsiders, something Berry has felt being both a woman and a woman of colour. "The beauty of X-Men is that everyone can relate, all people have been discriminated against in some way. We all struggle with, 'are we too thin, are we too that, is our nose too thin, are our boobs too small, should we cover our grey hair?'.

"We all struggle with these questions but what we're asking is, 'are we okay the way we are?'. We all relate because we've all asked ourselves these tough questions."