With Hugh Jackman looking set to extend his run as Logan to nine films with X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse and the third Wolverine movie, the actor has suggested recently that he’s finally starting to consider hanging up the claws and calling time on his signature role. Speaking to Collider, Jackman remained coy about his plans, but seemed to indicate that he’s open to sticking around a little while longer…
“It’d be great to leave people wanting more, rather than the other way around. It’d also be great to make the decision rather than getting that phone call, ‘Now listen Hugh, I know you thought you were going to [keep going], and thank you so much for all you’ve done, but…’ I think it would be much better to be making that decision together… For me there has to be something new and some new direction, I suppose, for the character to go; not only for me, but for the audiences. And I feel that that’s been happening. Right now I don’t [want to let it go], and as long as it keeps going this direction I probably won’t (smiles). But I’ve made that promise to you, it’s not something I will stick around at and stay at if I feel it’s dropping off or if I don’t feel that urge to go and do it, because I know there’s 10 million actors out there who would kill themselves to play the part. They should, it’s a great part.”
And as for when he does decide to finally call it a day, Jackman went on to state that he assumes Fox will reboot the character, rather than going down the Bond route of replacing him with another actor: “I just presume, in a way, that if it happens they will reboot. I don’t know why I thought that. I think you could replace him because he’s older, but it would be interesting—because I was 30 when I got the role, it’d be interesting to follow that character from 20, or even 18, because we haven’t seen it. So that’s just what I assumed it would be.”
Jackman will next be seen as Wolverine in X-Men: Days of Future Past, which opens on May 22nd in the UK and May 23rd in North America. Read our review here.
Originally published May 16, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
