Hugh Jackman's character in X-Men (2000) goes by many names — Logan, James Howlett, and Weapon X — but is best known to many simply as Wolverine. While the X-Men films are not explicitly regarded as movies with smoking, Logan's preference for a lit cigar is depicted throughout the franchise.

From the first scene to feature Wolverine, Jackman is puffing on a cigar (after finishing his cage fight, of course). Co-star Anna Paquin revealed that the scene was difficult to film due to Jackman's prosthetic adamantium claws.

In 2021, she told SiriusXM: "We were doing that truck stuff at the very beginning. He had his claws out, but he's also supposed to be smoking that cigar. I did have to pick cigar out of his teeth because he actually couldn't do it with his claws. But y'know, what are friends for?!"

Jackman has also commented that smoking cigars are a way for Wolverine to stand out as a classic tough guy character. While Logan is only one of the heroes of the movies, his persona is less clear-cut than some of his fellow X-Men. Smoking cigars is a way to put across that rebellious, bad-boy side.

Showing actors smoking is an artistic choice in modern movies, but, luckily, Jackman is known to enjoy cigars in his personal life too. Because of this, smoking in movies is no big deal for the Aussie-born actor.

The plotline

Following the success of X-Men, the franchise spawned a string of sequels, several of which have focused on Jackman's character. Among them was the poorly received 2009 prequel X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the much more successful Logan in 2017.

Before Logan, there was The Wolverine (2013). Loosely a sequel to X-Men Origins, the film started development in 2009 and featured a plot that continued from 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand. That installment ended with the death of Jean Grey, who Logan stabbed to stop her dark and powerful alter ego, The Phoenix.

The Wolverine depicts a Logan trying to come to terms with Jean's death and the fact that he caused it. He sees his rapid healing ability and prolonged life as a curse. However, after traveling to Japan, Logan is injected with something that prevents him from healing as he usually would.

After discovering the robotic parasite attached to his heart, Logan removes it. A showdown follows with the villainous Dr. Green, who attempts to extract Logan's healing ability with Logan's former friend Ichiro Yashida, who has become the adamantium-enhanced Silver Samurai.

Following the final battle, Logan decides to let go of his guilt and returns to the US, where Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr — better known as Magneto — seek his help to prevent a human-made weapon from ending the mutant race.

Cigar smoking scenes in The Wolverine

Unusually for the character, Logan is not shown smoking on-screen during the events of The Wolverine. Instead, he is seen drinking several times. Whether this was a creative decision within the design of the movie or related to concerns about showing actors smoking on-screen in a PG-13 film is not clear.

However, the character's constant companion is shown early in the movie. Just six minutes in, Logan is shown living rough in the woods. As the camera pans over his few possessions, eagle-eyed viewers will spot a portable clock radio, a bottle of whisky and a dark brown cigar with a white-edged red band.

The Wolverine was the first X-Men movie in which Logan doesn't visibly smoke. Still, viewers might be surprised that there are no cigar-smoking scenes in the following year's X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) or even in 2017's Logan, although the latter shows the character grabbing a handful of stogies from a convenience store.

In the earlier X-Men movies, Logan's cigars are a common motif, and he is often forced to put down his smoke to get his claws out before a fight. Often, cigars appear in the opening scenes. This is the case in the 'Danger Room' training sequence at the start of X-Men: The Last Stand and in the scene of the D-Day landings, which opens X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

What type of cigars are smoked in The Wolverine

Although it's hard to tell exactly what type of cigar is shown in the campsite scene at the start of The Wolverine, several brands are associated with Logan and Jackman in his personal life, too.

Cohiba Cigars

Cohiba Cigars are one of the names often listed among Jackman's favorites. The Cuban cigar brand is now produced in the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua, allowing Cohiba's premium handmade cigars to be imported to the USA despite the Cuban embargo.

It was in the 1960s that Fidel Castro started a factory so that his bodyguard's cigar-roller could produce handmade cigars for his top officials. With the Cuban government's protection, Cohiba remained open through the revolution and is a perfect fit for Logan's bad-boy persona.

Visit your local Casa de Montecristo store today to find out more about either of these cigars or to explore many more that would put a smile on even Wolverine's grizzled face.