Hugh Jackman was offered the role of James Bond before Daniel Craig signed on

Hugh Jackman made history as Wolverine in the X-Men movies. Having played the character for 17 years, the actor achieved the Guinness World Record for “longest career as a live-action Marvel superhero.” A little before X2 went into production, Hugh Jackman was courted to play another classic character: James Bond.

In a 2017 interview with Variety, Jackman explained exactly why he chose to turn down the legendary role.

“I was about to do X-Men 2 and a call came from my agent asking if I’d be interested in Bond. I just felt at the time that the scripts had become so unbelievable and crazy, and I felt like they needed to become grittier and real. And the response was: ‘Oh, you don’t get a say. You just have to sign on.’”

Last year, incumbent James Bond Daniel Craig was asked about the prospect of Hugh Jackman replacing him now, to which he jokingly responded, “Over my dead body.”

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