Freddy Krueger, Edward Scissorhands, Wolverine. Three characters with blades for hands, and three characters so wholly associated with their live-action actors that it’s nearly impossible for another performer to step into the roles. Hugh Jackman attempted to bid farewell to the X-Men franchise and his mutant hero years ago, but has yet to actually shed his adamantium skeleton for good, and fans expect to see him in more upcoming Marvel movies like the Russo brothers’ Doom-ified sequel Avengers: Doomsday.
Well-known as being one of the nicest gents in Hollywood and beyond, Jackman appeared on the podcast Sibling Revelry to talk to its two genial hosts, Oliver and Kate Hudson, about his belief that being a bit of an impatient dick during his first X-Men audition helped spark enough interest that the casting directors brought him back. In a clip shared on Instagram, Jackman explained that the Marvel movie came about as he was striking out to get his career going outside of Australia. Speaking to his local caché at the time, he said:
I was no Nicole Kidman or Russell Crowe, but I was there, and then went to England to do Oklahoma. That was a big hit over there, and I auditioned for X-Men. . . . Here’s one of the great bits of luck. It was a Wednesday, and I had to go in between the matinee and the evening show. I had to be back by seven. I ran into town and I’m waiting to do this audition.
To leave one job to try out for another one would seemingly just be asking for trouble, especially when there's a time element involved. But Jackman was confident enough that he could try out for the role and still make it back without disrupting any evening performances. And when it looked like that might not actually happen due to all the other actors auditioning, the Logan star said he flipped a passive-aggressive switch:
Finally I did the dick thing. I knocked on the door, I said, ‘Guys, I gotta go.’ They said, ‘Well, you’re not next.’ I said, ‘That’s cool. I’ve got a show to do, so I’m out. Thanks, all the best.’ But I was pissed, and whatever nerves I had about doing it, I was just like, whatever, and I went in there. Of course, perfect for Wolverine, right?
It sounds like thsoe who were present during that initial audition process liked the energy they saw coming off of a heated Hugh Jackman. Enough so that chose not to turn him away, and still let him say his piece. And thank goodness, because Jackman said that seemed to be what held their interest, even if he completely lost that vibe the the time he'd returned for the first callback. As he put it:
So I went in with a ‘didn’t give a shit’ [attitude], and I walked out the door and they were like, ‘We love this guy. Let’s get him back.’ And then my next audition, I was like, [wide-eyed and eager] ‘What would you like?’
Not that putting on brusque airs automatically put him above all the other actors circling the Wolverine role at the time. He's stated in the past that the aforementioned audition was around 20 seconds long, and that he returned for upwards of seven total auditions before he was officially cast as the brooding badass. He also said Kevin Feige, who had yet to become the head of Marvel Studios, threw him an olive branch that also helped keep him in the loop long enough to land the part. Fast-forward 26 years, and now we're wondering if he'll be back for the first official MCU X-Men project.
Before any further Wolverine news gets confirmed or debunked, fans can see Hugh Jackman in musical co-lead form alongside Kate Hudson in the Neil Diamond tribute band biopic Song Sung Blue, which has been winning critics over ahead of its December 25 release in theaters.
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