Wyatt Russell initially wanted to become a director following a sports injury which made him re-think his career.
The 37-year-old hunk – who is set to star in the forthcoming sequel to ’22 Jump Street’ – suffered a neck injury when he was younger and began contemplating what other career route he could go down if hockey was no longer an option.
He told collider.com: "I got hurt when I was 19. They thought I broke my neck. I couldn’t move my hands or feet, and I had a very bad experience. They had to cut off my gear and it was just a bad time. I remember rolling through the hospital and looking up at the ceiling and just thinking, ‘Okay, so I’m not gonna play hockey anymore. I’m not going to be able to do this anymore. What am I going to do? Maybe I’ll direct? I’ll do something like write?’ "
Later, Russell – who is the son of Hollywood A-Listers Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn – severed a nerve in his neck and decided to pursue acting since directing would be an extremely difficult option.
He explained: "I didn’t know. Then later, I had almost a severed nerve in my neck, I had a severely pinched nerve in my neck … The feeling came back and everything came back, but after that, I realised that I’m not going to be able to play hockey forever, and I’m not going to be doing this, maybe if I’m lucky, till I’m 35, and after that I gotta do something.
"So I started watching a lot of movies. I wanted to direct, but then I realised that directing … getting a movie off the ground is like impossible, so I’ll try something else. That was the moment for me that flipped the switch."
Wyatt Russell initially wanted to direct films
