Whether it’s fighting Wolverine on the Statue of Liberty in X-Men or causing havoc on the streets of Haddonfield, Illinois, in the Rob Zombie iteration of Halloween, actor Tyler Mane has had an incredible career in some of the biggest blockbusters to date. Ahead of Comic Con Wales and to celebrate the 25th anniversary of X-Men, we caught up with Tyler to reflect on his time as Sabretooth and Michael Myers, as well as finding out everything you need to know about his extremely personal comic book outing, The Last Spartan: Red Tape!
STARBURST: You get to take on some incredible fight sequences in the first X-Men movie; which one was the most rewarding for you to work on?
Tyler Mane: That would have to be the fight on the top of the Statue of Liberty. They built the head of the statue in a sound stage in Toronto, and working up there, harnessed, was just amazing. I loved working with Hugh Jackman on that. We rehearsed that fight scene for quite a while, to get it looking the way it did.
There’s also that great fight sequence in the snow near the beginning of the film; that looked like it was a lot of fun to work on…
We filmed that in Pickering, Ontario – just outside of Toronto. It was the coldest day of the year, and they’re like, “OK, you’re going to stand on this road side, and we’re going to shoot potato flakes at you, because we want it to look like it’s snowing”. It was minus 40! It was intense, but it was really cool to see that as the opening, coming out of the snow like that.
Quite a few of those fight scenes are with Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. Can you tell us what he was like to work with?
Working with Hugh was amazing. He was open to doing anything and everything, and it was a lot of fun. To be able to bring that kind of dynamic chaos to the screen was amazing.
Deadpool & Wolverine brings back quite a few legendary characters from the Marvel world, including Sabretooth, who’s certainly a character that viewers have always wanted to see more of. Did that feel like a bit of a full-circle moment?
To get a call, 24 years later, saying, “Hey, do you want to put the gear on again, and be Sabretooth?” I’m like, “Heck yeah!” It was more of a full circle thing than just getting to play Sabretooth again. When I did Chicago Wizard World for the first film, I met Zeb, a really nice kid, who was saying how he wanted to get into writing. We hung out a bit, I talked to him, and he was asking me for advice, and I was like, “Wow, I’m just starting myself, but be persistent, and keep going!” 24 years later, I was getting off the elevator to go to the premiere of Deadpool & Wolverine, he came up to me and said “Hey, I’m Zeb, I met you 24 years ago at Chicago Wizard Con, you said to follow my dreams, and I ended up being one of the writers on this and you’re the reason I’m working on this film”. I was like “What!” it was totally mind-blowing. He said, “I saw you in this from the beginning, from the time when we met, 24 years ago” and I was like “Thank you, man!” He fought to keep me in the film. I believe, that Pyro [Aaron Stanford] and myself were the only two from X-Men that had made past appearances. The others were stand-ins and stunt doubles.
How did the idea for The Last Spartan: Red Tape come about, and can you tell us a bit about the main story that runs through it?
My friend, John F. Saunders, had written this book, probably 18 years ago, called The Last Spartan, and it dealt with the lone survivor of a motorcycle club being forced to go back and save someone from human trafficking. I thought it was a really interesting book and an interesting idea, how can we expand on it?” I had in the back of my mind for all of these years that I really wanted to do something with it, and figure out how to expand that world of The Last Spartan, bringing the mythological and everything into it, because he sees omens to guide him to save these people. Basically, it deals with human trafficking, which is a topic that’s not addressed as much as we need to. It’s something that has been going on since the dawn of time. I’ve teamed up Nic McKinley, a former CIA operative, who has a company, DeliverFund, that develops technology for law enforcement to help put an end to human trafficking. It’s my way to give back. It deals in this world of Frank Kane, who’s a motorcycle club enforcer. He’s also the last of the Last Spartans. He’s asked to go in and save this one girl. Teaming up with a ragtag team, they form their alliances, and decide that they’re going to save as many as they can.
Did being an actor help when you were working on the comic?
A little bit. My wife, Renae Geerlings, used to be the Top Cow Comics editor-in-chief for about a decade or so. She’s been in the comic editing world for a couple of decades now. She’d kill me if I said how long! So that’s kind of how this came about, she said, “Why don’t we make a graphic novel about it?” Tell the story that way. Because, my end goal is to turn it into a TV series, and hopefully continue to raise awareness about about human trafficking, and help get the word out.
Would you like to play Frank Kane?
I would love to! That’s kind of the way that we are designing it. If it works out that it’s me, that would be great, if it’s someone else, that’s fine to. It’s just about raising awareness, and getting the word out there, because it is a global issue.
How excited are you for Comic Con Wales, especially since David Hayter will be there?
David Hayter is an amazing guy. It’s going to be great to be able to reunite with him. I learnt years ago that without the fans, I wouldn’t have a career. I used to wrestle professionally, and in the wrestling world, either the fans love you or they hate you. When you’re playing the bad guy, you want them to hate you, and then they really hate you. In real life, they’re like, “You’re so mean, it’s great!” It’s about giving back to the fans, and going to these conventions to meet them and to spread the word about The Last Spartan: Red Tape, is why I love going there. Meeting the fans and having the interactions.
Is there anything else that you have coming up on the horizon in 2025 that you’d like to share with us?
Yeah, we’re working on another issue of The Last Spartan: Red Tape. We’re trying to get that ready to launch either later this year, or at the beginning of next year. We’re keeping on pushing, and having that move in the right direction
Tyler Mane appears at Wales Comic Con on August 9th and 10th. For more information, head over to https://www.comicconventionwales.co.uk/
Head over to Tyler’s official sites and follow on social media: https://www.tylermane.com/ https://www.maneentertainment.com/ https://www.instagram.com/therealtylermane
You can read more from our interview with Tyler in the next issue of STARBURST – on sale August 29th.
