We’ve already published some nice little newsie-nuggets from today’s Pan press conference in London, but here’s another one. Hugh Jackman, who plays the villainous Blackbeard in the film, was really candid in his appearance at the conference earlier today, and when a fan asked him if he ever turned down the chance to play a role only for it to go to another actor, Jackman replied that he wasn’t the first choice to play his iconic Wolverine character in the original X-Men.
We’ve heard before from other sources that Russell Crowe was apparently director Bryan Singer’s first choice to play the Marvel character in the original X-Men all of those years ago, but turned it down. Today, Jackman revealed a slightly different story, and said that an unnamed original actor was cast in the part, but was actually injured early in production, so couldn’t continue. We’re not saying that the actor was indeed Russell Crowe, as Jackman doesn’t name the actor at all, but we thought that the following video clip was a great piece of Hollywood history that we thought we’d share with you. Things could have been very different, and I don’t think I can even imagine anyone else playing Wolverine…
Jackman also reveals in the video that he turned down the Richard Gere part in Rob Marshall’s Chicago in 2000, because he thought he was too young.
Jackman will return to the role of Wolverine once last time in director James Mangold‘s Wolverine 3 (or whatever they decide to call it), which will be released in 2017.
Pan is released in cinemas in October in both the US and the UK. Read our extremely positive review of the film here.
