X-Men’s Hugh Jackman passed on playing James Bond

Hugh Jackman finished a 17-year-long run as Marvel’s hairiest and second-angriest character, Wolverine, earlier this year, with the superhero-western film Logan. Along with Sir Patrick Stewart, he’s played a superhero longer than anyone in Hollywood. But it turns out his career was almost shaken up – not stirred – back in 2003. The Australian actor was in consideration as a replacement for Irish actor Pierce Brosnan was the one-and-only James Bond. It wasn’t to be, though.

“I was about to do X-Men 2 and a call came from my agent asking if I’d be interested in Bond,” Jackman told Variety in an interview. “I just felt at the time that the scripts had become so unbelievable and crazy, and I felt like they needed to become grittier and real. And their response was, ‘Oh, you don’t get a say, you just have to sign on.”

Jackman enjoyed playing the Ragin’ Canadian, but wanted to be available to do other roles, like his turn in Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige, and was worried that leading two franchises would keep him from flexing his acting muscles.

Article source: https://www.technobuffalo.com/2017/12/07/x-men-hugh-jackman-james-bond/