Hugh Jackman Describes His Disastrous Wolverine Audition and the Kind Gesture Kevin Feige Gave the Actor at the Time

Hugh Jackman is set to return to the big screen as Wolverine, seven years after his supposed swan song, Logan Jackman first auditioned for the role 25 years ago, after being turned down once and seeing Dougray Scott in the role.

But, unbeknownst to Jackman, the actor’s schedule with Mission: Impossible 2 would eventually push him away altogether, forcing a last-minute reshuffle after filming began.

EW reports that Scott later said The telegraph in 2020 that Tom Cruise did not let him make the two films and ordered him to “stay and finish the film.”

Jackman recalls that he was then brought in to read lines for the director. Bryan Singer in the director’s caravan with the screenwriter Tom DeSanto sitting in the corner.

Jackman explained: “He was just saying, ‘Quiet…Quieter…Quieter.’ By the end, I couldn’t even hear myself,” Jackman said of DeSanto. “I could tell he was saying, Why, on my lunch break, am I auditioning for a guy for a role I’ve already chosen? He was angry.

Behind the scenes, “there was a real scramble to get our Wolverine,” Feige says. “Lauren (Shuler Donner, his boss) was very enthusiastic about this Australian guy, who had been rejected at first.

“As I recall, one of the main reasons was that he was too tall.” (Jackman is 6’3″). “In the comics, Wolverine is sometimes called ‘Little Fireplugs.’ He’s small. But they were desperate.”

Jackman left the audition depressed, convinced he would never get the part. However, instead of driving him straight to the Toronto airport, Feige offered to take him to dinner with the screenwriter first. (“I didn’t want to send him out in the cold!”) “I said, ‘Kevin, we all know I’m not getting the part. You don’t have to have dinner with me.'”

“But no, he sat there and had dinner with me and then drove me to the airport. I’ll never forget it. It was the sweetest thing. I thought I’d never see him again.”

Not only did Jackman land the role that would define his career, but he would almost certainly see Feige again. Years passed and Fox continued its series of interconnected X-Men films. Now they are reunited for the next one Deadpool and Wolverine in theaters July 26.