Hugh Jackman Reveals He Was Almost Fired as Wolverine from First X-Men Movie: 'I Was Angry'
The X-Men universe almost looked very different.
Hugh Jackman, who played Wolverine in the X-Men movies starting in 2000, revealed during a show in London that he almost lost the high-profile gig. Jackman is currently on tour as part of his Hugh Jackman: The Man, The Music, The Show solo show.
“I was told that things weren’t really working out as they hoped,” Jackman, 50, admitted, according to The Daily Mail. “I was about to get fired from my first Hollywood movie, the biggest of my career. I was angry, I went home to my wife and I complained. I was whinging an Olympic level of whinging to Deb, my wife, and moaning about this person and that person.”
He continued, “She listened to me very patiently for about an hour and finally she just said, ‘Listen, I think you have just got to trust yourself. You are worrying way too much about what everything else is thinking. Just go back to the character, focus on that, trust your instinct. You’ve got this.’ “
“To me that was love. Someone that believes in you when you don’t fully believe in yourself. This show is dedicated to Deb and the kids,” Jackman finished.
After over two decades of marriage, Jackman can still remember the day he met wife Deborra-lee Furness. At the time, The Greatest Showman star was in his early 20s and had just booked his first acting gig on the Australian TV series Correlli, which Furness, 13 years his senior (she’s now 63), was starring in.
“My first job out of drama school — it was a massive break for me. I was really scared,” Jackman previously told PEOPLE. “Deb, she was a big star. I get picked up, and Deb is in the front seat of the car. I’ll never forget. She took off her seatbelt and she turned around and put out her hand and took off her sunglasses and said, ‘Hi, I’m Deborra-lee Furness, nice to meet you.’ I remember thinking, ‘I like this girl.’”
It took another six weeks before the Logan star worked up the courage to ask her out. “Deb and I were already best friends, and I realized, I’ve got a crush on my leading lady. This is the thing you do not do. It’s unprofessional and embarrassing.”
First, Jackman tried ignore his crush. “I didn’t talk to Deb for a week,” he said. “Then I was like, ‘This is not a good plan.’ “
Eventually, he decided to invite her over for dinner with some friends. “I invited 20 people [over for dinner]. She came over and I said, ‘Deb, give me a hand with the dessert.’ My dad was a great cook, and he taught me how to make crêpes suzette. It’s a good hour to make crêpes suzette.”
“She said, ‘I noticed you haven’t talked to me in like a week, what’s going on?’ I said, ‘I got a crush on you. I’ll get over it, I’m sorry.’ She goes, ‘Oh? Because I’ve got a crush on you too.’ I never in a million years thought she reciprocated.”
Hugh Jackman: The Man. The Music. The Show. tickets are now on sale.
