Hugh Jackman Apologized To The Actor Who Was Originally Supposed To Play Wolverine

The track record for superhero movies at the Academy Awards is spotty at best. For every Heath Ledger winning Best Supporting Actor, there’s The Reader getting nominated for Best Picture over The Dark Knight. But Logan is getting serious Oscar buzz. That’s partly because it’s a “serious” comic book movie, but also, it’s one of the finest films of 2017 with marvelous performances from Patrick Stewart and Hugh Jackman. In another timeline, though, it’s not Jackman on the campaign trail — it’s Dougray Scott.

It’s a classic Hollywood “what if” tale. Scott was the original choice to play Wolverine in 2000’s X-Men, but filming for Mission: Impossible 2, where he played a rogue IMF agent, went over schedule, so he dropped out. Jackman, a then-little-known Australian actor, took over. He’s since appeared in nine X-Men movies over 17 years before announcing he’s retiring the claws.

To clear up any potential awkwardness between the actors (one became an A-lister because of Wolverine; the other has worked steadily, most recently on Fear the Walking Dead), Jackman told The Hollywood Reporter that he met Scott “early on and I said to him, ‘Man, I am sorry.’ And he said, ‘It’s just business but you have just gotten one of the greatest roles out there so go crush it.’ I just remember being so impressed by that.” If (when) someone else plays Wolverine, Jackman hopes he’s a “big enough guy” to “do exactly what was done to me, and I feel glad to just be a part of the legacy of that character. I feel great parts — great characters outlive the actors that play them.”

Scott has the last laugh, though: at least he wasn’t in Movie 43.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

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