Hugh Jackman talked about his upcoming superhero film The Wolverine to the August issue of GQ Australia and explained how his sixth outing as the X-Men character is different from his past appearances.

The actor, 44, took on the role 13 years ago and first played Logan/Wolverine in the 2000 Bryan Singer-directed blockbuster X-Men. He returns for James Mangold's film that focuses mainly on his character fighting his old demons. The film will be released in theaters July 26.

"This has pretty much been the backbone of my career," he said about the character. "It was the first (Hollywood) job I got and there have been a hell of a lot of jobs and opportunities I've had off of it."

"When we started with this, comic-book movies were pretty much cold, it wasn't really a genre. Since then I look at a lot of comic-book characters and Wolverine is certainly one of the more interesting, layered, fun and bad-ass. And I really enjoyed playing him."

Jackman also acts as producer on the upcoming film. He got to choose where the movie would be shot and the Australian actor took the cast and crew back to his homeland. He said of his decision to film in and around Sydney with Mangold, "I was excited to be able to rig the prime minister and tell her that this was win-win."

Mangold praised his leading star - who he previously worked with on 2011's Kate & Leopold - by calling Jackman "a unique character with his affability and his generosity."

"I've always found a great kinship with Hugh - we have similar personalities and we trust each other, and that is everything," the Oscar-winning director said. "It's important to make a film with love and Hugh is very much a part of that plan for me."

The Wolverine picks up with its main character wandering to Japan with little memory of himself, according to Screenrant. When he begins a romance with a young woman from a powerful family, it sparks a gang war that surfaces new enemies for Wolverine. At the same time, he still tries to control his own rage and master the beast within him. The film is based on a 1982 Wolverine comic book miniseries by Chris Claremont and Sin City creator Frank Miller, according to the report.

Jackman told Total Film in a previous interview that The Wolverine portrays a new direction for the character and will not serve as a direct sequel to X-Men: Origins.

"We've deliberately not called it Wolverine 2 because we want it to be placed and feel like a standalone picture," he said. "With an all-new cast and setting it in Japan, it's going to give us a whole new visual aesthetic. The approach to character means we won't be overloaded with mutants and teams and the like, so it'll be more character-based. I think in many ways it will feel like a completely different X-Men film."

Jackman will play Wolverine again next summer in X-Men: Days of Future Past.

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