‘Deadpool 2’: Stephen Lang Says He Never Auditioned to Play Cable

About a year ago, an almost absurd amount of names were swirling around the role of Nathan Summers/Cable in Deadpool 2. But as it turns out, one rumored contender actually wasn’t really up for the part.

In a recent interview with ScreenRant, Stephen Lang was asked about his potential ties to the role of Cable. As Lang revealed, not only did he not audition for the role, but he actually isn’t too familiar with Cable as a character.

“No, no, I never auditioned for it,” Lang revealed, “and you know, truth be told, I’m fairly Cable-ignorant.”

According to Lang, that sort of ignorance about the character was largely due to the eras in which he read Marvel Comics.

“Look, my relationship with Marvel Comics goes back to the ’60s when – and I’m talking about as a reader, I was right there for the first Spider-Man.” Lang explained. “I was a Fantastic Four fan, I loved Doctor Strange, I love Jim Steranko, Jack “The King” Kirby, all them, Steve Ditko, you know, I knew who they were and I was reading all that stuff, I will say that it – by the time Cable came around… I had kind of moved on.”

Even if Lang hadn’t been too familiar with Cable, he put his name in the running for the role quite a few times. Lang first addressed the possibility through a social media post back in February of 2016, before responding to those fancasts head-on in August.

“Oh sure, I was a fan of the first Deadpool and I’d be delighted to be a part of that sequel, but I haven’t spoken to anyone about it.” Lang explained at the time. “It kept cropping up on the internet that I should play Cable. The extent of what I did was, one day I was in the gym and I tweeted, “let’s lay some Cable,” and that became construed as my campaign for the part. Even now, if someone does fan art, I’ll retweet it because I like keeping it alive.”

Ultimately, Josh Brolin ended up nabbing the role, and a series of first look images of him in costume have earned a pretty positive response with fans and Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld.

Thankfully, fans won’t have to wait too long to see how he handles the role, as Deadpool 2 will now be released on May 18th, 2018.