Though for most X-Men fans Hugh Jackman will forever be the face of the hot-headed and clawed mutant, Wolverine, legendary comic book writer Chris Claremont used to want the role to be given to English actor Bob Hoskins.
Speaking in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter following the start of the theatrical run of Jackman's final Wolverine film, Logan, Claremont revealed how he used to want the award-winning Mona Lisa star to take on the claws back in the 80's. However, his mind seemed to change after Jackman had auditioned for Wolverine in 1999.
"Well, that's a perception of the medium in 1988. At the same time, when I was looking at the pairing of Ororo [X-Men's Storm] and Logan, to me it seemed perfectly rational to have Angela Bassett and Bob Hoskins, because the image I had of Hoskins was from the films he made in England where they emphasized, in terms of his character, the harshness, the Cockney, the brutality of him.
There was a film he did called Lassiter with Tom Selleck, and if you look at the two of them together, Tom Selleck is this 6-foot-plus powerful, handsome, glorious leading man and Hoskins is this little cop. In one scene, Selleck comes to the door of [Hoskin's] house and Hoskins takes one look at him and hauls off and shoves Selleck back down the drive, yelling "You come to my house?" and just repeating it over and over as he shoves Selleck back down the path and through the fence out onto the street.
And the expression on Selleck's face is "Holy Shit!" and I thought, bingo. That is Logan.
That instant rage. But like I said, this is the world of 1988. Cut ahead 12 years to when we're sitting down, when [producer] Lauren Shuler Donner was putting together Wolverine and we were talking about it, and the actor who was originally chosen for the role got injured on the set of Mission:ImpossibleII, Dougray Scott, and she had Hugh Jackman on her list.
He had just won the Olivier award for Oklahoma!, which is the totally opposite end of the spectrum, and, again, you look at him and you think, too tall, too handsome, too this, too that. And he walked out into the audition and just nailed it and they put him on a plane to Vancouver within 24 hours to start shooting X-Men. The rightness of that decision has been proved ever since."
Of course, like Claremont says, things can change over time. Back in the 80's Hoskins seemed to embody Logan's personality, so much so that the Uncanny X-Men writer had wanted to have him play the role. It's interesting how things have changed, and though Jackman's putting down his claws as Wolverine, it seems like a lot of X-Men fans are going to remember him fondly, especially because of his last run in Logan.
Logan hits American cinemas tomorrow, March 3.
Read: Hugh Jackman Explains How He Did Logan
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