Hugh Jackman’s Original Wolverine Audition Resurfaces

Hugh Jackman paid a virtual visit to The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon this week, and they talked a lot about Jackman’s 17-year stint playing Wolverine in the X-Men films. In fact, Fallon surprised Jackman with a clip from his original audition tape from 1999. The short clip features Jackman sitting in an office reading for Logan, and the two men proceed to talk about how the role was originally meant for Dougray Scott, who was unable to take the role due to Mission: Impossible 2 conflicts. You can watch Jackman and Fallon’s chat as well as Jackman’s audition clip in the video above.

“When I walked into that room, I was pretty sure that I wasn’t playing the role,” Jackman explained. “It was a weird audition because Dougray Scott had the role, and then he got caught up on Mission: Impossible 2, but everyone thought that would get sorted.”

He added that he only auditioned as a “back-up plan.” “It was like this hail mary, to begin with, which is probably the best way to of an audition,” Jackman explained. “I think the entire audition was about 20 seconds. It wasn’t much longer [than the clip.]”

Jackman explained that it was Kevin Feige who ended up driving him to the airport after his audition, long before he was the head of Marvel Studios. Jackman also shared that he was given the advice that X-Men would probably flop since “comic book movies were dead.” Of course, Jackman soon learned that comic books weren’t a “sub-culture” like people thought, and they were actually “mainstream.” The rest, of course, is history!

Jackman has also been very vocal about pandemic safety these last couple of months. He has shared art of his iconic character, Wolverine, promoting masks and that wasn’t the first time. The actor took to Twitter recently to remind people of the importance of mask-wearing once again in a video dedicated to first responders.

That wasn’t the only time Jackman sent messages to essential workers. The coronavirus pandemic has put healthcare workers on the frontline of a battle to keep as many people as possible healthy, so Jackman recently took note when he saw the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels flight squad and the U.S. Air Force’s Thunderbirds flying to pay tribute to those healthcare workers. He took a short video and shared the shot on Twitter, which you can check out here.

Recently, Jackman was also nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his role as Frank Tassone in HBO’s Bad Education.