Deadpool & Wolverine Star Aaron Stanford On Making The Multiversal Leap From X-Men To The MCU

Aaron Stanford looks back at his time playing Pyro in the original X-Men movies while teasing his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in Deadpool & Wolverine. Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman are about to be reunited on the big screen this summer as the two Marvel veteran reprise their respective characters in Deadpool & Wolverine. Even though this is the only Marvel Studios movie to release in 2024, it has already been hyped up to be one of the biggest films in The Multiverse Saga.

In one of the early Deadpool & Wolverine trailers, it was revealed that several familiar faces from the past X-Men films were making a comeback for the Deadpool threequel. One of them was Pyro, who was played by Stanford in X2: X-Men United and X-Men: The Last Stand. Now, after nearly two decades, Pyro is getting included as part of the Deadpool & Wolverine cast, with the multiverse playing a crucial factor in the story.

Screen Rant interviewed Stanford about coming back as the Marvel character almost 20 years later. Stanford looked back on his experience with the X-Men movies and how that journey was vastly different from what he did in Deadpool & Wolverine. Stanford also teased what audience members can look forward to with his Pyro return and how he factors into the multiverse-based story.

Aaron Stanford Previews His Pyro Return In Deadpool & Wolverine

Screen Rant: Since X-Men: The Last Stand, how much have you personally been keeping up with the superhero movie/comic book genre? Because back in 2006, the last time we saw you it was nowhere near where it is now.

Aaron Stanford: No, it’s an entirely different universe. The Marvel Cinematic Universe did not exist when the when the original X-Men movies came out, certainly not in the form that it exists now., so things have changed quite a bit. I think the first one that I was in, [which was] X2, when I look back, I can see how instrumental that was to starting that seismic shift in comic book films. When I was a little kid, comic films were considered to be a little bit hokey, I think, almost, and X-Men really tried to change that, to try keep the initial spirit and keep the elements of it.

They knew the pre-existing fan base was really excited about, but they also really wanted to elevate it, and bring some of the more elevated aspects of storytelling that already exist in the comics themselves. At that time, they wanted to bring that to the screen, and make a movie like X-Men, which is ostensibly about mutants with superhero powers. They wanted to bring the subtext of that to the fore and show that this really was about marginalized people struggling for equality and equal rights. They were very successful and the movie was still a ton of fun. I think that was one of the early movies, they showed people like what the real potential could be.

Getting That Magical Phone Call From Marvel Studios

Tell me about the day you got the call to be back for this, because I imagine after almost 18 years, this must have been a very big surprise to hear, ‘Oh, yeah, we’re doing this, Deadpool and Wolverine are gonna be back together, but we want you to be part of this adventure again.’ What was the experience of getting asked?

Aaron Stanford: You could have knocked me over with a feather – it was pretty much the last thing that I was expecting. I’ve spent the last 20 years doing very, very different things. I felt very much like the X-Men universe was very much behind me. But yeah, my agent called and she said that, the first thing I heard was that ‘Marvel called us,’ [I go,] ‘Okay, well, what did they call about?’ ‘Nothing specific, they just want to check on your availability, just seeing what’s going on.’ Then there was another call, again, checking availability, and then another, all these little forays, just feeling the situation out.

Then finally, we got the call where they said, ‘All right, great, so we would love for him to hop on the phone with Shawn Levy. I knew that he was the director of Deadpool 3, and that’s the only thing that it could possibly be about. So yeah, I hopped on a Zoom call with him, and he dropped the news and was just like, ‘Yeah, we want to bring Pyro back, is that something you’d be interested in?’ and of course, I jumped at it.

What Has Pyro Been Up To For Almost 20 Years?

Do we get a good idea of what Pyro has been up to for the last almost two decades when we meet him in the film again?

Aaron Stanford: I have to be really, really careful because I don’t want to spoil anything, and it’s very, very, very, very sensitive, but certainly I will say that, yeah, when you first see Pyro, you will immediately get a sense of what he’s maybe been through during this period of time.

Pyro Finally Gets His Super Suit

When we first saw you in the trailer, I couldn’t help notice, but you finally got your own Pyro costume after all these years! It’s very reminiscent of the comics. Did it go through a lot of changes before you guys landed on the final one with the costume designer?

Aaron Stanford: You’re absolutely right, Pyro never had a proper superhero costume like that. One of my source points from the X-Men movies is that me, originally in X2, there’s a big scene where this SWAT team invades Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Mutants and they’re raiding the school at night with automatic weapons and laser pointer like scopes on them and all the kids have to run. So for half the movie, I’m in my pajamas, just running around in my jammies. Then we ended up going to a house where I’m able to swap out to regular clothes and the clothing that they chose to put Pyro in was sweatpants and a T shirt. So I went from jammies to loungewear, that’s what I’m wearing when I blow up all the cop cars and then progressed to X3. It wasn’t really a proper superhero outfit, it was more just like an ensemble from Hot Topic, it just wasn’t the real thing.

So when I went for the fitting, and they showed me what it was going to be. I was thrilled. It’s from a specific [run,] I think it’s influenced mainly by this one specific run where it’s the Ultimate X-Men run and it’s this different version of Pyro. In this version of the comic book, it’s the one that his face is horribly burnt, he’s used all of his powers. In the end, he’s burned himself and he’s in this kind of firefighter outfit. That’s what the vibe is and that’s ultimately what they ended up going for and it was a cool look. It was like utilitarian and they had like the firefighter snaps on it and everything. So yeah, putting it on, I felt like, ‘Alright, I’m finally a proper superhero here!’

Witnessing Hugh Jackman In The Iconic Wolverine Costume

You had worked with Hugh Jackman originally in X-Men: The Last Stand, you must have geeked out when you saw, for the first time him in his proper costume. Did you feel like, ‘Oh my God, I got to be part of this experience finally seeing one of my co-stars finally doing the whole suit!’?

Aaron Stanford: I was just thrilled to see him again. It had been a really, really long time and those those early movies were, they were, great adventures for me. That was very, very early in my career, and prior to the X-Men films, I had just done very small independent films, that was a really big deal for me and they were very long shoots. They were like six months shoot, to the time where you’re away from home and you get very, very close with the cast and crew so it was like seeing a long lost friend.

It was great to see him in the classic blue and yellow suit, it’s very visually arresting and I know there’s a lot of fans who are going to be thrilled to see that and it was an interesting contrast for me because way back 20 years ago when we were doing it, they never would have done that. Because, at that time, they were trying to get away from that, they were trying to distance themselves from that because they wanted this film to be taken seriously. So they made sure to put all the X-Men in very tough, black leather suits – a lot of black leather so they could maybe look like a leather-clad, Navy SEAL-team was the idea. Now, I think, 20 years later, it’s come full circle, and people have had their fill of the black leather, and they’re like, ‘Alright, well we did that, now let’s bring it back to the original and see how that plays.’ So yeah, it was very cool to see, and I think people are going to go nuts over it.

Working On The X-Men Movies Vs. Deadpool & Wolverine

Working on a Marvel Studios film versus when you did original X-Men films, what was the most significant difference of shooting these specific projects, given how the genre has evolved so much now from what it was during 2006. What was the biggest takeaway where you would go, ‘Wow, so this is how they do it now?’

Aaron Stanford: Mainly just the sheer scale of it. It’s just enormous, and understand for me, I’ve only done small films before the X Men movie, so to me, the scale of the old X-Men movies was absolutely jaw dropping. Now, the difference between what has happened in that interim, it takes your breath away. We would go to these sets, and the cool thing about Deadpool was that, at least for the stuff I was involved in, there wasn’t a ton of green screen, I think the green screen was an element to it, but a lot of the time, they’re building out these massive, massive sets, so when you are there, you feel like you’re there! When they drove me out to that, – you’ve seen it in the trailer, so I can say a little bit about [it] – that desert, wasteland, and I saw it, and it’s absolutely like being transported. I think that part partially, as you said, just the development of the MCU and how big these movies have gotten in general, but it’s also that this is Deadpool 3, and it’s in the ambition of this movie of something people really haven’t seen before, so that was that impressed me.

Could The X-Men Reboot Be Next For Aaron Stanford?

Marvel Studios is finally getting ready to now do their own X-Men film and if you’re given the opportunity, would you want to come back? Maybe not as Pyro, but maybe a different character this time?

Aaron Stanford: I mean, it’s an absolute blast, obviously, you always want to know what the specifics are and what the characters are. But I had a fantastic time doing the original X-Men movies, I had a fantastic time doing Deadpool 3, so if I could find myself in a situation where it was a project that was akin to those mean, yeah for sure. I’d love to do it.

What Is Next For Aaron Stanford?

Besides that, where can people see you next? What are you up to right now?

Aaron Stanford: Right now what people can see me in is, most recently, I did a film that that’s pretty close to my heart called Finest Kind, that is on Paramount+ right now. It’s with Brian Helgeland directed and wrote it. It’s with Tommy Lee Jones, Ben Foster, Jenna Ortega, and it’s all about this crew of fishermen in New Bedford, Massachusetts – I’m from Massachusetts, so it’s very, very close to my hometown. The characters are very close to my heart, so similar to a lot of people I grew up with, it’s about these commercial fishermen who basically run afoul of organized crime and get involved in the heroin smuggling trade. That role was a ton of fun, because it was a great story, and again, it was something that was close to my roots.

The Improvisational Deadpool & Wolverine Set

If you’d asked my 15-year-old that I would talk to Pyro one day, he wouldn’t believe it – I always loved his chaoticness growing up, so I’m excited to see you and Ryan Reynolds just banter with each other. That’s what I’m really, really looking forward to seeing.

Aaron Stanford: It’s gonna be fun, man! It was an incredibly improvisational set, which is amazing for something on that scale, that they’re able to be that fast and loose in the moment. You have an idea of just how much money every second is costing, but to be able to be with people [like] Ryan Reynolds and Shawn Levy very much worked on this style as well, I was able to have people that are able to work within that framework and still keep it loose, still keep it improvisational, still keep it in the moment. It was really something else.

About Deadpool & Wolverine

Marvel Studios presents their most significant mistake to date—”Deadpool & Wolverine.” A listless Wade Wilson toils away in civilian life. His days as the morally flexible mercenary, Deadpool, behind him. When his homeworld faces an existential threat, Wade must reluctantly suit-up again with an even more reluctantlier… reluctanter? Reluctantest? He must convince a reluctant Wolverine to—F–k. Synopses are so f—–g stupid.

Check out our other Deadpool & Wolverine interviews:

Source: Screen Rant Plus

Deadpool & Wolverine

A follow-up to the highly successful Deadpool and Deadpool 2 films starring Ryan Reynolds as the Merc with a Mouth. The third film will be the first in the franchise to be developed under the Marvel Studios banner following Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox.

Director

Shawn Levy

Release Date

July 26, 2024

Studio(s)

Marvel , Maximum Effort

Runtime

127 Minutes

Expand