Actor Viggo Mortensen revealed that he turned down the role of the X-Men’s Wolverine thanks in part to his son Henry.
On an episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast (via MovieWeb), Mortensen detailed how an early meeting with 20th Century Fox and director Bryan Singer colored his thoughts on potentially being locked into a superhero role for years to come. Besides his own personal misgivings, Mortensen’s young son Henry, a fan of the X-Men, noted how different Singer’s incarnation of the superhero group looked.
"The thing that bothered me at the time was just the commitment of endless movies of that same character over and over,” Mortensen said. “I was nervous about that. 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.'"
Singer eventually asked Henry if he was familiar with Wolverine, Mortensen said.
“And he goes 'yeah, but he doesn't look like this,' And 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 said. “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 [films] so who knows."
While three Lord of the Rings movies is quite the project, it ended up being far less of an ask than what Wolverine actor Hugh Jackman got over the course of seven (technically eight) X-Men movies, most of which focused on Wolverine as the central lead. It's well-known that Jackman wasn't the first choice to play Wolverine, but call it a happy accident, considering Jackman is easily the most lauded and popular part of the X-Men film franchise.
Mortensen even turned down a role in the Hobbit trilogy prior to that franchise’s filming way back in 2008. The actor is definitely the type to be careful with his role selection, typically appearing in only one to two movies per year. His most recent major appearance in 2019’s Green Book (alongside Mahershala Ali) earned him an Oscar Award nomination for best actor. He most recently made his directorial debut for 2020’s Falling, starring Mortensen as a gay man caring for his dementia-ridden homophobic father.
Now that Disney owns 20th Century Fox, the future of the X-Men franchise has been a popular question considering the MCU made it all the way to Avengers: Endgame with nary a mutant. You can read our thoughts on what WandaVision latest twists and turns might mean for the future of the MCU.Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer/strider for IGN.
