Hugh Jackman had no idea what a wolverine was before he was cast as the character in the ‘X-Men’ film series.
The 48-year-old actor has portrayed the clawed mutant in the franchise since 2000 but he has admitted his research proved harder than he first thought when he secured the part because he was busy looking up wolves.
H’s quoted by news.com.au as saying: "I didn’t even know there was a wolverine. I literally, embarrassingly did about two weeks of research on wolves.
"I was rehearsing for three weeks and I was shooting, so I was kind of on my own. I remember going past an IMAX in Toronto, and there was an IMAX documentary about wolves, and so I thought, ‘I’ll go and see that.’ "
But when they started shooting the first film 17 years ago, director Bryan Singer pulled him up on his ability.
He recalled: "He said, ‘Are you sort of walking funny, what’s going on?’ And I said, ‘I’ve been doing this thing with wolves,’ and he goes, ‘You know you’re not a wolf, right?’ I said, ‘Well, there’s no such thing as a wolverine.’ And he said; ‘Go to the zoo, dude.’ I literally didn’t know it existed."
Meanwhile, Jackman made his eighth and final appearance as Wolverine in the recently released ‘X-Men’ spin-off ‘Logan’, and has said he wasn’t sure about the movie’s final scenes when he first read the script.
In the movie, Wolverine – also known as the titular Logan – meets a noble end when defending X-23 and her fellow young mutants from the Reavers, but he thought it would have been "more powerful" if he didn’t die.
He said previously: "It was always floated that Logan would possibly die. I said, ‘Let’s be open, because it may be more powerful for him not to die … James was always certain of that ending, and he was right.
"Unlike a human character, what’s most poignant for someone who is thought to be indestructible is him dying while saying, ‘This is what it feels like.’ "
Hugh Jackman didn’t know wolverine was real
