Hugh Jackman Reveals He Was Offered James Bond After Playing Wolverine

After he was plucked from relative obscurity at the end of the millennium, Hugh Jackman found himself as a household name when brought Marvel’s Wolverine to life in the first X-Men movie. The Australian actor would go on to play the part for literal decades and is set to reprise it once again in Marvel Studios’ upcoming new Deadpool movie with Ryan Reynolds. Following the runaway success of X-Men however, Jackman found himself subject to a lot of offers in Hollywood, including the part that many action-oriented stars would kill for, Ian Fleming’s James Bond 007.

Speaking with IndieWire in a new interview, Jackman opened up about that early part of his career and how it presented him with the problem of repeating himself. “I didn’t want to do the same things,” Jackman revealed (H/T The Playlist). “You know, the role of the hero action star. I mean, it was the meat-and-potatoes of a lot of American films, that archetype. It was all various forms of heroic guys in tough situations. I was like, ‘Uh, no. This is a problem.’” Jackman then admitted that the team at EON Productions made a call about playing James Bond after Pierce Brosnan, presumably for Casino Royale, adding, “I had a look at it. I was like, ‘If I’m doing that and Wolverine, I’ll have no time to do anything else.’ I clearly find it more interesting to play people who color outside the lines.”

Who will play the new James Bond?

Following the end of Daniel Craig’s tenure as Agent 007, the producers of the franchise find themselves once again looking for an actor to takeover the part with an eye toward an extensive stay in the series. Sadly for Hugh, he’s perhaps too committed to playing Wolverine one last time (again) and seems to be out of contention for the role of James Bond. In a previous interview producer Barbara Broccoli noted hopes for an actor in their 30s.

“When you change the actor you have to reimagine the direction the film’s gonna go in,” Broccoli told Empire. “When you hire an actor, you’re hoping you’re going to spend a decade at least with them and make four or five or six films with them. So you have to think through, ‘what is the trajectory? What is that actor going to bring? How are you going to move the series into another direction?’” 

“It’s not just flicking through Spotlight and saying, ‘Oh, there’s a guy who’s 6’1,’” Broccoli continued. “We’re going to take our time. We want to get a sense of where we want to go with the series and we want to do that before we bring anybody else on. We’ll start the process probably with [writers] Rob [Wade] and Neil [Purvis] and we’ll see where we go!”