He has been immortalised onscreen as Wolverine, but there was a time Hugh Jackman was approached to play the iconic role of James Bond, which he turned down as he found the script of a potential film to be quite straitjacket.
The 49-year-old star said he believed scripts of the movies needed to become “grittier” then and replacing Pierce Brosnan as Agent 007 would be too much on his plate as he was going to reprise his part as the adamantium-clawed mutant in the X-Men film franchise soon.
“I was about to do ‘X-Men 2’ and a call came from my agent asking if I’d be interested in Bond. 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 the response was: ‘Oh, you don’t get a say. You just have to sign on.’ I was also worried that between Bond and ‘X-Men,’ I’d never have time to do different things,” Jackman told Variety.
Eventually, Daniel Craig stepped in to play James Bond with Casino Royale in 2006. He will reprise his role for the 25th Bond film possibly for the last time, that goes on floors early next year.
Jackman said he tried adding layers to his role till its death in Logan this year, which also made him feel “a little bit claustrophobic” at a point of time.
“I always tried to do different things. But there was a time between ‘X-Men 3’ and the first Wolverine movie when I could see the roles getting smaller.
“People wanted me to play that kind of hero part exclusively. It felt a little bit claustrophobic,” he said.