Hugh Jackman

Hugh Jackman was not the first choice to play Wolverine. Dougray Scott was originally signed for the role in X-Men (2000), but a delay in the shooting of Mission: Impossible II forced a last-minute replacement. The Australian actor arrived on set three weeks late and with a physique far from the mountain of muscle we would see years later.

Bryan Singer asked him to get in shape while they were shooting the first interior scenes. At that point, Jackman was a relative unknown in the United States, coming off work in Australian television and on the London stage. His audition was so rushed that he didn't even have time to read the original comics.

And he did.

That low-profile contract guaranteed him a salary of 500,000 dollars. It was the start of a seventeen-year run with the Marvel character that ended up breaking screen longevity records. But success in action movies was not his only priority in the industry.

The guy who could sing in the rain of claws

Before the adamantium claws came musical theater in Sydney and London. In 1998, he starred in Oklahoma! in the West End and earned an Olivier Award nomination. For Jackman, the stage was never a Plan B or a refuge for when Hollywood offers dried up.

Many action actors worry that audiences won't take them seriously if they start dancing. He did the opposite. In 2004, he won the Tony Award for his performance as Peter Allen in The Boy from Oz, proving he could carry a Broadway show on his shoulders for months.

Hollywood looked at him with bewilderment.

Combining superhero movies with Broadway musicals seemed like a commercial risk in the 2000s. But Jackman used his influence to back projects others turned down. In 2009, he hosted the Oscars with a musical number still remembered for its technical craft and rhythm.

Numbers, sweat and the risk of 100 million

In 2012, Les Misérables arrived. To play Jean Valjean, he stopped drinking water for 36 hours before shooting the opening scene so his cheeks would look hollow. He lost 15 kilos in record time, then regained the weight to shoot the second part of the film, where his character looks healthier.

The film grossed $442 million worldwide.

But it wasn't all smooth sailing at the box office. In 2015, he starred in Pan, a $150 million blockbuster that barely recouped its investment. That flop reminded him that a name on the poster doesn't always guarantee lines at the theater if the story doesn't connect with audiences.

In 2017, he bet on The Greatest Showman. The project sat on a shelf for years because studios didn't trust an original musical. The movie had a quiet release but stayed in theaters for months thanks to word of mouth and ended up grossing $435 million worldwide.

The return to the yellow suit

After saying goodbye to the character in Logan (2017), Jackman insisted he would never unsheathe the claws again. The film was a critical success and earned an Oscar nomination for its screenplay. It seemed like the perfect ending to nearly two decades in which the actor pushed his body to the limit with dehydrating diets.

So the news of his return for Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) caught the industry off guard.

For this shoot, he had to follow a diet of 8,000 calories a day to rebuild muscle mass at age 55. The contract stipulated that he wear the classic yellow comic book suit for the first time in his film career. Filming of this final installment in London was delayed by the 2023 actors' strike.

The production wrapped with an estimated budget of $200 million.