Viggo Mortensen Explains Turning Down Wolverine

Prior to Hugh Jackman, Viggo Mortensen was offered the role of Wolverine in the 2000 X-Men movie by Bryan Singer but turned it down in part due to his son Henry’s response to the movie script.

While appearing on the Happy Sad Confused, Viggo Mortensen reveals he took his son Henry with him to go meet Singer and read the script, but that Henry thought the script was all wrong.

“The thing that bothered me at the time was just the commitment of endless movies of that same character over and over. I was nervous about that,” Mortensen said. “And also there were some things — I mean, they straightened most of them out, but I did take Henry to the meeting I had with the director as my sort of good luck charm and guide. In the back of my mind, I was thinking he could learn something, too, because I did let Henry read the script and he goes, ‘This is wrong. That’s not how it is.’”

Mortensen continues and says Singer tried to convince Henry why he changed things, but Viggo Mortensen reveals he didn’t want to do X-Men anyway.

“All of a sudden, the director is falling all over himself and then the rest of the meeting was him explaining in detail to Henry why he was taking certain liberties,” Mortensen continued. “We walked out of there, and Henry asks if he will change the things he told him about, and I say, ‘I don’t think so. I’m not going to do it anyway, because I’m not sure I want to be doing this for years.’ And then, a couple of years later, I’m doing three Lord of the Rings [movies] so who knows.”

Hugh Jackman is the best Wolverine

While Viggo Mortensen didn’t decide to do Wolverine, maybe we can thank Henry for whatever was fixed to make the 2000 X-Men movie so good, but it’s just too bad Henry didn’t get a chance to read the script for Singer’s X-Men: Apocalypse.

Another bonus with Viggo Mortensen not taking the Wolverine role is that Hugh Jackman was eventually cast, who in hindsight was the right decision and who went to star in nine X-Men movies and who just might be returning for one more movie, according to rumors.