Deadpool and Wolverine is one of the most anticipated films in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Along with the return of Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds to their legendary roles, the film will serve as a celebration of Marvel history before Iron Man took flight in 2008.
Every good celebration has reunions. One of the biggest for fans comes in the form of Aaron Stanford, who will be making his grand return as Pyro after nearly twenty years. Heroic Hollywood was able to sit down with the actor ahead of his return in Deadpool and Wolverine to talk about his experience with the film and why his character stands out in the hearts and minds of so many fans.
What was your reaction when you found out you were coming back as Pyro in Deadpool and Wolverine?
First of all, I was shocked. I thought Pyro was long gone. It’s been almost twenty years. He was given a very clear ending in X-Men 3Ice Man attacks him in one shot and that’s it. I thought that was it and all of a sudden I started getting phone calls.
I got on Zoom with Shawn Levy and he was like, “We want to bring him back. We want to resurrect Pyro. Are you interested in doing something like that?” I jumped at the chance. It’s a great movie to be a part of and I was really excited about the prospect of resurrecting this character.
Why do you think Pyro resonates with so many people even all these years later?
You know, first of all, I’m really excited to hear that you think it resonates with a lot of people! I’m hearing this more now that it’s coming back to the forefront: I’m hearing that people like it, that people like it. I’d always been afraid that I came across as so arrogant a lot of the time, so brash. I thought I was some kind of villain. And that maybe people didn’t like it, you know?
Of course, as an actor playing him, I had the whole backstory made up for him and there’s a lot of pain and a lot of loss behind this arrogant behavior. I’m glad to see that people saw that, understood it, felt it, and identified with Pyro.
I think the best way to describe him is that he’s an outsider among outsiders. Even at the school for gifted mutants that he ends up at, which is a school for people who are absolutely on the fringes and brutalized and shunned by society. Even there, he can’t seem to quite fit in. And that’s why he ends up switching sides and making this move to the dark side with Magneto.
I think that’s what resonates with people. X-Men in general resonates with people who feel like they don’t fit in for some reason, who feel like an outsider. And Pyro is like the absolute pinnacle of that.
You see? Deadpool and Wolverine As a victory lap for your time as the character, or do you see it as a fresh start for your time in the MCU?
I don’t bother speculating too much about whether or not it’s the beginning of something else. I’m just excited to be in it. It was a blast. And, yeah, I’m really happy that it gets a chance to have a different ending than it did in X-3, which I think left a lot of people a little unsatisfied. So it’s really nice that it gets a chance to come back and, like you said, go for another spin.
What was it like meeting Hugh Jackman again all these years later?
It was amazing! And I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about Hugh. He’s known for being the nicest guy on the planet. He’s a real prince among men. So it was great to see him. When we were making the old movies, we would shoot those movies for months and months at a time. You’d be out on location. What ends up happening is that the cast and crew that you’re there with end up becoming a kind of surrogate family.
You get really close to him. And to be able to see him after all these years and be reunited with his son, who at that time, when I last saw him, was just a little boy. And suddenly Hugh has these grown children. It was really nice to be able to see him and relive all that.
In the older movies, you mostly just wore casual clothes as Pyro. How did it feel to finally get a superhero costume?
Everyone is more interested in this than I thought they would be! Yes! He finally has a real super suit, which he never had in any of the other movies. I was very conscious of that when we were shooting the movies. I was like, “I’m in pajamas, and now I’m in sweatpants! Where’s my black leather?” So I never got the black leather, but now I have a real super suit.
This is a super suit that was taken from… I think it’s the X-Men Ultimates series. And it’s a version of Pyro from some kind of alternate reality where he’s this character who’s gone crazy and has burned his entire body from playing with fire his whole life and he’s got this super heavy duty super suit that’s like a firefighter’s. So it’s like the super firefighter suit. It’s the super fire starter suit! So, yeah, I’m into that now. I got the look. And Pyro came ready to play.
Back in time That day you mentioned that Garth Ennis was one of your favorite writers, specifically his time in The Punisher. With its creation, BoysNow that it’s so big, would you ever want to join that universe?
Absolutely! Yes! Absolutely! Garth Ennis has been kind of a fixation of mine for a long time. There was a time when all I read was Garth Ennis. For a significant number of years. I would go back to his war comics. They’re exhaustively researched. He’s an authority on that area of history. So his stuff is absolutely incredible.
And The Boys, of course, I love it because, yeah, again, it’s a lot like Deadpool, you know? It’s a satire. It’s a parody of the superhero genre. I love playing in that world. It was a great opportunity in Deadpool to be able to do something similar. To come in and play the old character of Pyro from the old X-Men movies, but also put this new spin on it where it’s meta, it’s self-aware, and it’s a bit of a parody. You’re allowed to have a bit of a sense of humor about yourself. So that was pretty fun.
A lot of people think you made it big when you get the Marvel paycheck, but you’ve described yourself as a working-class actor. What are some realities of being a working man in Hollywood that a lot of people don’t think about?
Being unemployed! It’s a constant struggle. People are more aware of that now, of everything. The information superhighway really opened the floodgates and things are a lot different than when I shot the original X-Men movies.
At the time, people didn’t talk about the box office, but now everyone knows that this movie has broken this box office record. People are very aware of that and they know the ins and outs and the machinations of Hollywood. And I think a lot of people are aware that it’s hard to hold down a job.
It’s very difficult. A lot of people want to do it. There’s a lot of competition. You have to fight for every single job you get. Every time the job ends, your career ends. And you have to start over with the next one. And that’s how it works. I’ve been very, very fortunate to have been able to have a career for almost a quarter of a century. It’s been great, but it’s hard to keep going. But when you can, it’s the best. It’s the big prize.
Did you know back then that there were fan sites dedicated to you?
Yeah, I knew a couple of them. I was always very flattered then and I’m still very flattered now. There are a couple of big sites that have followed me throughout my career. It always surprises me because I don’t think of myself that way and I come from a very small town, very, very far from Hollywood.
As you say, I’ve always described myself as a self-employed actor, an actor who’s never gotten to the point where I couldn’t walk down the street. And I’m very grateful for that! I’m really scared of fame. I don’t know how these people get it. It’s a nightmare. But to have these people, to know that there are people who see your work, who enjoy it, who think it means something to them, that’s what I always wanted to do.
I always hoped to do for others what actors had done for me when I was a kid, which was to feel like someone else understood me. I would see people give performances that would suddenly reveal to me, “Oh, other people feel the same way I do and experience the same uncertainties and the same pains as me and want the same things.” When you see a certain performance that you really identify with and say, “That’s me, that person is speaking for me,” I always hope that I’ll have one or two performances where that’s the case. And I think I’ve seen that happen for some people, and I’m really excited that it’s true.
Actors are often at the mercy of writers and directors when it comes to the roles they play. Is there a story you’d like to play that you haven’t had the chance to play yet?
Yeah! I write, so I work on a lot of things. I like to tell a lot of stories. I have an idea for a Pyro story that takes place in an alternate universe. It’s an adult Pyro who’s basically an X-Extremist. He was an X-Activist Extremist, he’s done horrible things, and now he’s on the run from the law with his family. So it’s an idea I’ve been incubating.