Entertainment_Weekly_Issue_1456_March_10_2017

WHEN JACKMAN, NOW 48, FIRST AUDITIONED FOR THE WOLVERINE ROLE IN

London in 1998—his hair smelling like peanuts thanks to a perm for his role as

Curly in a West End revival ofOklahoma!—he didn’t get the part. It went instead

to a Scottish actor named Dougray Scott (Ever After: A Cinderella Story). Jackman,

who had made just two small films in Australia, took it in stride. “When you start

as an actor, you audition for things,” Jackman says. “When you get to the final two

or three, you can think, ‘Well, [at least] my agent’s not going to dump me.’”

And that was that...for about nine months.

The first X-Men movie had already begun filming in Toronto when Jackman’s

agent (who had not dumped him) got a call. Scott had been scheduled to wrap

his role as the big bad onMission: Impossible II in time to makeX-Men, but the

Mission shoot had gone over schedule. They needed a new Wolverine. Good

news, to be sure, but at the time it wasn’t exactly a hall pass to stardom. In fact,

X-Men was a serious gamble. Superman and Batman had both fizzled out by the

late ’90s, and the only comic-book superhero release of 1999 wasMystery Men.

So Jackman saw it as little more than a chance to work

with his idols. As a boy dreaming of a career on the stage,

he had watched Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in

Playing Shakespeare, a series of videos produced by the

Royal Shakespeare Company. “They were

the De Niro and Pacino for me,” Jackman

says. Now, suddenly, they were his costars.

X-Men opened at $54.5 million in July

2000. Propelled by mostly positive reviews
      and word of mouth, it went on to become
      the year’s eighth-biggest earner, behind
      Meet the Parents and (possibly to the delight
      of Dougray Scott)Mission: Impossible II.
      More important, the DNA of the movie
      industry was beginning to mutate.X2: X-Men
      United opened to even better numbers in
      2003, and Jackman’s profile continued to
      rise. While Spider-Man, a rebooted Batman,
      and Iron Man joined the fray, Jackman’s
      Wolverine remained a constant, even
      when the fate of the series around
      him faltered (see sidebar).
      In 2009, Jackman and Logan
      faced their first failure:X-Men
      Origins: Wolverine, a prequel that
      features a now openly mocked
      version of Ryan Reynolds’Deadpool.
      It leaked online before release and
      was shellacked by critics, and after-
      ward Jackman had trouble finding a
      compelling reason to don the claws
      again. “I couldn’t see what the next
      thing was,” he says. “I didn’t know
      what else to do. I didn’t know where
      to go.” In the years that followed,
      the films would rebound and con-
      tinue to score at the box office, but Jack-
      man began to question how he’d keep
      himself challenged in a role that had
      become the cornerstone of his career. Sure,

( From left )Jackman

with fans at the 2013

San Sebastián Film

Festival; with wife

Deborra-Lee Furness

and their children,

Ava and Oscar,

in 2009

THE EVOLUTION OF WOLVERINENNNNN OOOO EEEE WOLVERINE IS PRACTICALLY IMMORTAL; HUGH JACKMAN VERVERVERINEINESS

X-MEN 2000

Alone and shockingly baby-faced, Logan

encounters a similarly wayward Rogue.

Together, they’re pursued by Magneto’s

Brotherhood of Mutants and eventually res-

cued by Xavier and the X-Men. Wolverine’s

introduction to the team doesn’t

mean just a new black jumpsuit for the

clawed mutant. He also gains a family.

BOX OFFICE$157 million

X-MEN TIMELINE Present day

X-MEN: THE LAST

STAND 2006

Sporting a fiery new ’do,

Logan’s flame is back

from the dead, and evil.

He eventually frees Jean

from the Dark Phoenix’s

talons with one stroke

of his claws, putting his

crush out of her misery.

BOX OFFICE

$234 million

X-MEN TIMELINE

Present day

X2: X-MEN UNITED

2003

A blast from the past

appears in the form of

Col. William Stryker,

the man responsible for

Logan’s adamantium

skeleton and claws. If

that wasn’t bad enough,

the Cyclops–Jean Grey–

Wolvie love triangle

ends tragically.

BOX OFFICE

$215 million

X-MEN TIMELINE

Present day

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE 2009

With mid-credits scenes of the Civil War,

World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam

War, this origin story follows James Howlett,

the man who would become Wolverine, and

his relationship with Sabretooth, complete

with cameos from Deadpool and Gambit,

and more than a few examples of question-

able CG special effects.

BOX OFFICE$180 million

X-MEN TIMELINE BeforeX-Men

JACKMAN WITH FANS: RAFA RIVAS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; WITH FAMILY: BARRY KING/FILMMAGIC;

OKLAHOMA!

: PBS/EVERETT COLLECTION; WITH

SINGER: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX; SCOTT: JASIN BOLAND/PARAMOUNT;

X-MEN

: ATTILA DORY/FOX;

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE

: JAMES FISHER/

FOX;

THE WOLVERINE

: BEN ROTHSTEIN/FOX;

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST

: ALAN MARKFIELD/FOX