Hugh Jackman Reveals He Nearly Got Fired From the X-Men

Hugh Jackman helped usher in the era of comic book movies dominating the box office, thanks to his role as Wolverine in the X-Men movie series. However, now that Jackman is done playing Logan and moved on to new acting challenges, we're learning more interesting things about Jackman's time as Wolverine.

Today brings one particularly juicy anecdote: Apparently, Jackman almost got fired from playing Wolverine, at one point!

Jackman revealed his near-miss as Wolverine in an interview with Daily Mail UK. As the star tells it, taking on a character as big as Wolverine as his first big Hollywood role nearly broke him:

"I was told that things weren't really working out as they hoped. I was about to get fired from my first Hollywood movie - the biggest of my career. I was angry, I went home to my wife and I complained. I was whinging an Olympic level of whinging to Deb, my wife, and moaning about this person and that person. She listened to me very patiently for about an hour and finally she just said, 'Listen, I think you have just got to trust yourself. You are worrying way too much about what everything else is thinking. Just go back to the character, focus on that, trust your instinct... you've got this.' To me that was love. Someone that believes in you when you don't fully believe in yourself."

In case you miss the point of that anecdote: Marvel fans have Deborra-Lee Furness (aka Mrs. Jackman) to thank for the version of Wolverine that entertained them from 2000's X-Men through the 2017 finale that was Logan. Because Jackman stuck it out, Hollywood realized just how big of stars could be made from these types of roles, paving the way for the MCU and all the new stars that franchise has crowned.

As for the future: The X-Men movie franchise reaches its climatic conclusion with the release of Dark Phoenix this week - though that final chapter of the X-Men saga won't have anything to do with Jackman's Wolverine. The next time we see Logan onscreen may not be for a number of years, until the X-Men are inevitably rebooted within the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise. Needless to say, the debate over who will play the next version of Wolverine has been raging ever since Logan was released in theaters, with some fans going so far as to nominate outlandish picks like Danny DeVito for the role.

Who would you like to see as the next Wolverine? Let us know in the comments!

X-Men: Dark Phoenix will be in theaters this Friday.